Odd of the Dead
by Captain Fun
Summary: XANA’s latest scheme involves flooding all of Central Europe with flesh-eating zombies who kill the majority of the boarding school’s student body and faculty. Wackiness ensues. (Rated R for Language and Violence) Don't forget to leave a review.
1. Author's Notes & Comments

**_The Author's Comments to the Reader  
_**  
Hello everyone, this is Captain Fun, author of "Odd of the Dead". Before I continue let me off this disclaimer. I do NOT own any of the characters of "Code Lyoko" nor do I claim credibility for creating them or any other aspect of the program. They are all property of their respective owners. This story is satire and is intended for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended for sale or for financial profit.  
  
Onto the basics. If you're comfortable with the fact that there may be a few inconsistencies with my story and the original television program that it is based on amongst other things, you may skip this part and go straight to the story.  
  
**What to Expect**  
  
"Odd of the Dead" is horror/comedy/action story with a hint of drama, slight-romance, and maybe some bits of political and social commentary here and there. The comedy isn't designed to be straight-out, knock you dead, funny, but bizarre and a little misplaced, much like the kind you may see in other horror movies.  
  
"Odd of the Dead" is not intended for young audiences (if my "R" rating didn't give that away). Don't worry. There's no rape, yaoi, or anything graphically sexual in any way. It does contain, however, some occasional language (don't worry, I didn't drop any F-Bombs), some inappropriate humor, and, most importantly, some very detailed and graphic violence. "Odd of the Dead" is not, under any circumstances, intended for young readers, the squeamish, or anyone who just, by coincidence, happens to be eating something with a great deal of meat in it while they're reading. You have been officially warned.  
  
**"Code Lyoko", the Television Program**  
  
Given the circumstances that you, the reader, are not entirely familiar with the television program "Code Lyoko", I have here a small detailed summary of the show and it's characters. If you already familiar with the program, you may skip this section.  
  
"Code Lyoko" is a story about a group of pre-teens who live in a boarding school in Northern France (where the show is made). One day, they stumble upon a large computer mainframe they call the Super-Calculator which houses a virtual world home to a girl named Aelita. Aelita's world is terrorized by a threat named XANA. These kids decide to get together to find a way to bring Aelita into their physical world so that she will no long be under the threat of XANA.  
  
XANA occasionally terrorizes the physical world as well by unleashing supernatural threats. This can be anything from a swarm of deadly rodents to bringing things like samurai warrior armor to life. In order to stop these threats, they must enter the virtual world through the Super- Calculator and guide Aelita across a dangerous landscape and to a tower which she and the rest of the group can use to correct this threat and return to a point in time in the past when the threat first occurred.  
  
Here, is a list of characters from the show that make it into this story.  
  
**Yumi**: A young, foreign exchange student from Japan who is part of Aelita's group. She is recognized by her rather somber taste in clothing (all black). She tends to be very mature and responsible, but short-tempered. Has a borderline-serious relationship with Ulrich. In the virtual world, she dons a geisha-like outfit and a set of blade-tipped fans.  
  
**Ulrich**: The significant male character of the show. Is about a year younger than Yumi. Is also bold and mature, but indecisive at times. In the virtual world, he dons a warrior outfit and katana.  
  
**Odd**: ...of the Dead! Just playing. This is the second-most significant male character in the show. Is a bit of a comic relief. He is recognized by his unusual purple clothes and his even more unusual hair (spiked blond with a spot of purple in the front center). In the virtual world, he dons a cat outfit and shoots arrows. Odd indeed.  
  
**Jeremy**: The last of Aelita's team. He is recognized by his short, blonde hair and glasses. Is incredibly smart and is the only person who is intelligent enough to operate the Super-Calculator so he never actually visits the virtual world. In his free time, he talks to Aelita on his computer and devises plans on how to materialize her. Has a painfully obvious crush on Aelita.  
  
**Aelita**: From what we know, she is the only living person left in the virtual world where she exists. Is very kind and naïve. Though she has no offensive powers, she can manipulate the landscape in the virtual world and is the only person with the ability to activate any of the towers.  
  
**XANA**: A computer virus that has been terrorizing Aelita's world and is now terrorizing the physical world. Those meddling kids! Has no physical appearance. Usually appears in the physical world and a cloud of jet-black fumes before it chooses to posses someone or something.  
  
**Sissy**: One of the reoccurring characters not involved with Aelita. Is the principal's daughter and tends to be very selfish, rude, and bratty. Has a crush on Ulrich, but doesn't trust his friends. Recognized by wearing stylish clothes.  
  
**Herb**: One of Sissy's cohorts. Is something of Jeremy's counterpart in a way. He too is smart, but tends to be a sore loser and a little selfish. Has a serious crush on Sissy, but is too timid to make a move. Is recognized for his black hair, glasses, and generally geeky get-up.  
  
**Nicholas**: Sissy's other cohort. Like Herb, he too is shy and timid, but doesn't have a crush on Sissy. Wears short-shorts. Shivers.  
  
**Milly**: An underclasswoman who broadcasts the school's news. It very quiet in person and has a small crush on Ulrich. Is identified by her short, pink hair.  
  
**Tamiya**: Milly's close friend. A young, black girl who operates the camera for the school's news broadcasts.  
  
**Kiwi**: Odd's butt-ugly dog. Looks like a cross between Ren Hoek from "Ren & Stimpy" and a goat fetus. Where he lacks in appearances however, he makes up for in brains. Tends to be unusually clever.  
  
**Jim**: The school's gym teacher and groundskeeper. Big guy who tends to be a little on the slow side.  
  
**Sissy's Father/School Principal**: It's good to have friends in high places. He tends to be a strict, but fair Principal. Though he treats Sissy a bit nicer than most students, he's usually not afraid to lay down the law when necessary.  
  
**Mrs. Hertz**: School science teacher.  
  
**Dorothy**: School nurse.  
  
**Inconsistencies**  
  
I must regress that I have only seen a few episodes of "Code Lyoko". I may have only seen about more than half of the episodes so I know only so much of the show and certain aspects of it. Chances are that you, the reader, may know more about the program than I do. So, with that said, let me set a few things straight.  
  
One, I don't know how death works in relationship to the show as far as the Super-Calculator is concerned. A lot of characters die in this story (almost all of them just bystanders, but they die nonetheless). To me, a return to the past is a return to the past. If a character dies in the physical world and that prevents them from being revived when a time reset is initiated, too bad. It works the other way around here. Don't pester me with things like "So-and-so should be dead." I have already sketched out a complete outline of how this story is going to go and I'm not going to go and change around the entire ending just because of that. Deal with it.  
  
Secondly, I don't know a lot about firearms and I'm not going to act like I do. However, I wanted to be familiar enough with them so that the characters used appropriate weapons. Since the show is based in France, I found it only appropriate to use most French firearms (such as the FAMAS and FR-F2) as well as foreign weapons commonly used by the French police (Beretta 92G). However, I do cheat and use American weapons such as the shotguns as well as other foreign firearms such as Ingrams. If you just happen to be a gun nut and notice any absurdities or inconsistencies, don't bother pointing them out to me. As I said, I have already planned-out the entire story and I'm not going to change it, so keep it to yourself.  
  
Third, and lastly, I'm not entirely sure how the boarding school is set up in the show. Here in this story, the school is divided into two separate building (the classrooms and the dormitories) and the two buildings are, in no way, connected. If this is inconsistent with the show, too bad. I've already set up what I think is a perfectly fine story and I'm not up for changing it for that either.  
  
Now that I've gotten that off of my chest, please enjoy "Odd of the Dead". I can only hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it.


	2. Prologue

**_PROLOGUE_**

Jeremy had been up there on the roof for almost an hour now. At least 45 minutes perhaps, but that was long enough. His hope of finding more survivors was admirable, but by this time, it was simply futile and a little sad. They had yet to receive a reply or a phone call. All other calls to the outside world were equally futile. The lines for the police and hospitals were flooded with the calls of the panicked, confused and ultimately doomed.

Sissy had been trying to reach her father too, but even he was unable to return the call. Yumi and the others also feared the worse, but were less than eager to break the news to her. After her violent outburst earlier, no one really wanted to talk to her unless they felt it was absolutely necessary. Even her cohorts Herb and Nicholas were too afraid to address her. But honestly, who could blame them. Would you want to approach someone whom you just recently saw bashed someone's skull in with an aluminum bat and tell her that you believe that chances are most likely that her father, whom she adores so very much, was devoured by a pack of blood-thirsty maniacs?

No, I wouldn't either.

Yumi continued to climb the stairwell up to the roof. The stairwell was dark and the sound of her boots rapping against the metal steps echoed throughout the narrow yet empty corridor. She eventually reached the top, greeted by a large, metal door with a push handle. She pressed against it, letting out a metal squeak and a rusty croak as the door swung open. The dark stairwell was flooded with the outside light. Yumi too was splashed with the light, which momentarily hindered her sight.

It was magic hour. The sun had begun its process of melting into the horizon. A few clouds in the sky surrounding it only further enhanced its elegance. To see the sun like this on any normal day would be a sight to truly behold. The clouds striking its orange luminance like streaks of white paint on a canvas. The sight of a flock of birds fluttering gracefully past it without a care or concern in the world. It's an ultimately breathtaking sight and on any normal day, it would be humbling, soothing, and even a little romantic.

But this wasn't exactly a normal day. Of course, normal days aren't exactly something that comes frequently for people like Yumi and her friends Ulrich, Odd, and Jeremy. Many of their "normal days" were spent talking to people living in virtual universes, battling strange monsters, and messing around with highly advanced computer technology, all of which usually ensued with them tinkering with the Space/Time Continuum, but even for them, this was a very unusual day.

Jeremy had not noticed Yumi's arrival. His back was turned to her as he called out on his megaphone, hoping for even the slightest response, at least one from someone who was actually living.

"Hello!" he yelled out, "Is anyone there?!" His voice seemed a little hoarse. Of course, he'd been up here for a while talking like this. If you were too, I'm sure you'd begin having trouble talking.

"Hello!" he bellowed out, "Is anyone there?!" His megaphone-cracked voiced echoed out through the courtyard to no significant response. All he got were a few moans. Yumi approached him from behind. She spoke to him in a soft voice and from a distance, so not to scare him.

"Jeremy," she spoke, "You've been up here for almost an hour. If someone was out there, they would have replied by now."

Jeremy turned to Yumi, megaphone still in hand. "No phone calls or anything I take it?"

Yumi shook her head. "No.", she replied with a sign of disappointment in her tone, "Nothing at all."

Jeremy looked down at the ground, momentarily admiring the pieces of granite below his feet. He was deep in thought. Concern was plaguing him, terrorizing him with thoughts of worse case scenarios. Jeremy knew that he should have stopped with the S.O.S. calls a long time ago, but he decided to keep at it anyway. It wasn't that he was optimistic or anything, it was that his signaling and yelling was the only thing that had kept his mind off of his worries. He had been worrying about the well being of others all day. He had been worrying about Yumi, his friends, Jim, even Sissy.

But most of all, he had been worried about Aelita. Even though she was where "they" couldn't get to her, he still fretted for her the most. Even in the darkest of hours when things seemed the most bleak, he could talk to her. Whether it is a mere personal issue or a life-or-death situation, he could listen to her talk and all would seem to be at ease in the world. It didn't have to be about anything really. They could be talking about simple things such as what Jeremy had for lunch that day and even the smallest response from her would take what would feel like the weight of the world off of his shoulders. Yumi and the others also adored Aelita, but she only had the affect with Jeremy. They had that sort of "special" connection.

But he couldn't reach her now. She was all the way over in the dorms and Jeremy was stuck on top of the classrooms. He could see the dorms from where he was standing. He sometimes felt almost as if he could just extend his arm and grasp it in his hand, but he couldn't. If he could, he would dash across the courtyard and to the dorms for a nice chat. About anything really, it didn't matter; he just wanted to hear her comforting voice once more. Yet, not even that was possible. Well, it was _theoretically_ possible, but the whole flesh-eating-zombies-who-will-without-hesitation-tear-you-appart-limb-from-limb-at-the-mere-sight-of-you part sort of rendered that idea, to say in the least, absurd.

The entire courtyard was swamped with them. Mindless, empty shells of what used to be the living, dragging their feet, moaning and gnawing of the bodies of the dead police officers strewn about on the ground. Many were gray in the skin. Others were covered in blood, some of which was their own and some of which was, well, not. But the worst part of them was the fact some of them you would recognize. There was the guy in your classroom who kept getting called out by the teacher when he fell asleep in class which always gave you a good laugh and there was that girl who you had a crush on a month or so ago who you almost asked-out, but didn't after you found out that she was already going-out with this mammoth of a guy almost three times your body mass. Yeah, they were all there. Some of them friends, others mere acquaintances, but you recognized them all. And now they were dead. Walking upright and feeding off of the flesh of the living, but dead nonetheless.

"You must be hungry." Yumi said, interrupting Jeremy's solemn meditation, "Come on downstairs. All we have are some chips we got out of the vending machines, but it's enough to tide ourselves over for now."

"Thanks," Jeremy replied, "But I'm not exactly hungry." After seeing all the things that Jeremy had seen in the past few hours, I'm sure you wouldn't exactly be up for something to eat yourself, but Yumi was concerned for Jeremy's health and wasn't about to take "no" for an answer. Besides, she wanted him to stop with his attempts to reach someone. It was futile and starting to become rather depressing.

"I know you don't feel hungry, but you need to eat something. It may not be the most nutritious thing on the planet, but it's infinitely better than starving."

Jeremy wanted to stay up on the roof a bit longer, but he was too exhausted to argue with Yumi. Besides, maybe eating would also help him take his mind off of his troubles.

"All right. I'll be right behind you."

Yumi gave Jeremy a small, satisfactory smile, "Thanks Jeremy." She turned her back and headed for the door. Jeremy took another look around.

It was beautiful; the sun beginning to set on the horizon. On any normal day, it would have stopped you in your tracks, but there was something ominous, almost eulogistic about it. It felt like the Autumn days of human civilization and, with the right set of eyes, you too would be convinced that it was the end of the world; Armageddon.

Jeremy slouched slightly as he headed for the door, the sun striking his back, casting his own shadow out in front of him.


	3. Chapter 1: Bad Craziness

_"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."_ -Hunter S. Thompson

◊

  
_Captain Fun presents...  
_  
**_ODD of the DEAD  
_**  
_A "Code Lyoko" Fan-Fiction_

◊  
  
**_CHAPTER 1_**  
_Bad Craziness_  
Or  
_Fear & Loathing in Northern France_

◊

"I don't know Wayne, I really think you should reconsider." Isaiah was less than comfortable with his friend Wayne's plan to get them out of having to go to class. Ever since he first presented him with the plan, he wasn't so sure about it's integrity. It sounded absurd and, furthermore, Wayne wasn't exactly the brightest person in the school, even though he was an upperclassman. Isaiah had told Wayne all week about how foolish and stupid he was for even contemplating that it would work and they wouldn't get caught. However, Isaiah somehow felt less than eager to berate Wayne over his naïve plan. Perhaps the fact that Wayne was holding an axe in his hand had something to do with it.

"Oh please," Wayne replied, clearly frustrated with Isaiah's timid nature, "It's near-flawless! Look, I take this axe and break open the water pipe down here in the basement. This will cause the basement to flood. Right after we do it, we rush over to the dorms, change into some dry clothes and play dumb."

"Sounds like that last part shouldn't be too hard for you to pull off." Isaiah shot back at Wayne.

"Shut your hole Isaiah!" Wayne countered, "You're just mad that you didn't think of it."

"Please. And besides, what exactly did you need to bring me down here for in the first place? You can pull this whole stunt off yourself, right?"

"So you can be my alibi." Wayne replied.

"Excuse me?"

"My alibi!" the confidence in Wayne's voice was disconcerting, "When asked later where we were, you can tell them that you and I were hanging out and I can tell them the same thing!"

The hole in Wayne's logic was so big that Isaiah was surprised that Wayne didn't just fall right into it. Did he really have to point out the painfully obvious to him?

"At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious," Isaiah replied rather matter-of-factly, "Exactly why did you need to bring me along for that?"

A silence came over Wayne. Remember that gapping hole in his logic? Well, he had just fallen into it. He lied there at the bottom, attempting to futilely claw his way out like E.T. in a crappy Atari 2600 game. He eventually gave up and muttered an infuriated "Shut up!" and continued down the poorly lit basement corridor, axe in hand.

"Dumbass." Isaiah muttered under his breath. He followed Wayne, walking right behind him as they both disappeared into the dark sections of the basements.

Right underneath Isaiah as he walked away was a small drainage pipe; it's slots only thin enough for a few coins to fit through it. A pitch-black smoke began to ooze up through its orifices. A cloud of fog so dark and thick at first glace you would almost swear that you could hack through it with a machete. It only continued to draw itself up from the drain until it blanketed the floor. It was XANA. The thick, ominous layer of smoke began to creep down the halls into the direction that both Wayne and Isaiah were walking down.

"Ah, found it!" Wayne sounded proud of himself for discovering the water pipe that he was about to vandalize. "After this, it'll be days before we'll have to go back to class. Five-day weekend, here we come!" Wayne clenched the axe tightly, preparing to make his move.

"Remember," Wayne said looking over his shoulder at Isaiah, "The _moment_ I break this pipe, make a run for it!"

Isaiah shrugged, his assurance to Wayne that he was going to comply. He was less than eager to go through with the plan, a plan that would most likely land him in Juvey, or at least expelled. Yeah, he wouldn't have to worry about going to class then.

"Wayne," Isaiah, said, trying one last time to bring reason to his foolish friend, "Are you _completely_ sure this is going to work?"

"Of course!" Wayne answered smiling, "I was it once on 'Donnie Darko'!"

That only further brought down the price of stock on Wayne's intellectual integrity. It wasn't enough that he couldn't fathom a good idea for bringing Isaiah into this, but now he was imitating violent and vandalistic acts he saw in movies. Joseph Lieberman would absolutely love to get his hands on this kid.

"Get serious Wayne!" Isaiah was tired of being polite with his axe-wielding pal, "Movies like that are not meant to be taken seriously! They're just absurd fantasy stories like 'Star Wars' or '28 Days Later'."

"Too bad." Wayne answered. His friend's lack of faith in him didn't compromise his plan an inch as he went through with it. The blade came down on the metal pipe causing a small geyser, splashing fluid all over the walls, ceiling and other pipes surrounding it.

"All right," Wayne hollered, trying to speak over the running water. "Now let's get the Hell out of WHAT THE CRAP?!" Both Wayne and Isaiah pivoted in the opposite direction only to run into a wall of the dark smoke that stalked them through the basement.

"What the Hell is that thing?!" Isaiah screamed.

Both of them soon became well acquainted with what was blocking their path as it rushed through their bodies and evaporated into thin air. A choking sensation came over both of them, followed by what felt like a surge of ice water rushing through their bodies. Both Wayne and Isaiah hit the floor on their knees, their hands on their throats gasping for air as the water from the broken pipe showered them. After a few seconds of futile gasping, their once dark skin knocked itself down a few tones to a lifeless gray. Their eyes began to bleach and their gasps turned into hisses and moans. Whatever XANA had hit both Wayne and Isaiah with, they now succumbed to. Both kids got to their feet. Now breathing out their mouths wildly like madmen, they dragged themselves across through the dampened halls and towards the stairs from whence they entered.

◊

"Well, I can't talk for more longer Aeilta, lunch is almost ready." Jeremy, as always, was spending his free time in front of his computer, just talking away to Aelita. She was a drug for him. He never got even the slightest bit tired of her, in a matter of fact, he always seemed to be wanting more. That's what most of this was all about. Ever since he and his friends, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd, had discovered Aelita a while back, they had devoted their energy time-and-time again to help save her, sometimes even putting their own life on the line.

But for Jeremy, it was something more. Aelita was, to him,was trapped in the virtual world in which she resides. He wanted to bring her here to be with him, but he had yet to succeed. His past failures plagued and irritated him, but Aelita, his pie-in-the-sky, always cheered him back up to the point where he would try again. His cheerleader and number one fan.

"Lunch?" replied Aelita.

"Yes, lunch." Jeremy responded smiling. Aelita's naïve nature slightly humored Jeremy. "You remember 'Lunch', right?"

Aelita stared back at Jeremy sheepishly. She had clearly forgotten. Jeremy let out a slight laugh,

"Oh, you remember 'lunch'. It's the time in the middle of the day when we eat."

"Oh yes!" Aelita responded happily. "I do remember! It's the second of three sessions in the day when humans eat!"

"Yeah! Now you've got it!"

"Wow," Aelita added, changing her tone slightly, "Humans sure do eat a lot. I don't know if I'll be able to remember it all."

Jeremy laughed once more. "Oh don't worry Aeilta. It'll come to you like clockwork." A knock came on Jeremy's door. Yumi's voice came through the other side.

"Hey Jeremy, it's lunchtime! Finish up in there!"

"Yeah!" Odd added, "And besides, it's spicy chicken sandwich day!"

"I'll be right behind you guys!" Jeremy yelled back, "I'm just wrapping things up!"

"Well, we're not waiting up," Odd replied, "I'm starving! Let's split." Jeremy turned back to Aelita as he heard the sounds of his friends walking off.

"I've got to go now Aelita. Time to eat."

"Jeremy…" Aelita tried to catch his attention before he took off.

"Yes Aelita?"

"I…I hope that we can have the chance to eat together sometime." Jeremy stopped for a second to ponder that thought. To him, it was a lovely thought. Sitting together at a table talking to Aelita while they both enjoyed a meal, not ever having to worry about going back into the virtual world to risk dying to fight XANA. That was simply too wonderful.

"Yeah. I'd love to do that too."

Aelita gave Jeremy one of her comforting smiles and faded back into the virtual world, ending their conversation. Jeremy removed his headset and gathered his things together. He headed out the door to join his friends in the cafeteria.

◊

"Now, can anyone in here tell us how photosynthesis works?" Mrs. Hertz already knew that her class most likely didn't. It was another lazy Spring afternoon and thoughts of the weekend were running through her student's minds. The concept of photosynthesis and other biological habits of a plant's homeostasis were low on their thought priorities, regardless of whether it was going to be on the test or not.

"C'mon now," Mrs. Hertz said, breaking the silence, "We just talked about this yesterday!"

The class remained silent. Surely someone in this classroom of daydreaming children understood the process of creating carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water using sunlight as it's energy source and releasing oxygen back into the environment as waste, but whoever they were was simply to apathetic to speak up.

"This is ridiculous." Mrs. Hertz added angrily, "Is there anyone in here capable of retaining information for a period longer than 24 hours?"

Though slightly hurt, because they knew that none of them could, the classroom remained quiet. Not one single child made the attempt to answer Mrs. Hertz question at the threat of getting it wrong and looking like a fool for trying.

Before Mrs. Hertz could scold her class for their poor studying habits, her classroom door slowly opened up. The kids stood at attention. After all, it could be the Principal and no one wants to look like a bad student in front of the principal, regardless of their ability to remember what photosynthesis is. Isaiah crept through the door slowly, dragging his feet behind him. Mrs. Hertz was quick to take notice.

"Who do you think you are barging in here?" she shot at her intruder, "I'm bust teaching a class in here! And you're an upperclassman! Why aren't you in your class? Show me your hall pass!"

A light hiss passed through Isaiah's rotting teeth; other than that, no response. Mrs. Hertz took a moment to examine Isaiah. His pale, cracking skin; his bleached eyes; his disconnected demeanor; something was obviously wrong with him, and she was quick to take notice.

Mrs. Hertz edged over to Isaiah and put her hand on his shoulder. "Are you feeling okay child?" she asked him.

Isaiah's whitened eyes turned from facing Mrs. Hertz and stared maliciously at Mrs. Hertz hand.

◊

Herb & Nicholas were walking down the second floor halls. They had just recently been defeated once again in a game of soccer and had to change out of their sweaty clothes before they could muster-up the courage to show their faces in the cafeteria. Herb, as always, took his beating rather bad. One would figure that if someone last as many times as he has at a single game, you would have come to terms with it and maybe even have a sense of humor about it. Herb, however, wasn't one of those people.

His quest to impress Sissy turned out to be an exponentially more difficult task than he originally projected. Ulrich, who Sissy had her sights on for a long time, was the school's MVP for soccer and Herb's game had rendered him Ulrich's polar opposite. Herb figured if he took up soccer, he too could impress Sissy and deviate her attraction for Ulrich over to him. Herb didn't, however, count on the possibility that he could very well suck at the game, and suck he did. He showed-up for practice all right, but even that didn't create even the slightest improvement in his game. He was indeed the anti-prodigy of the sport, and, just like everyday, he was rather sore about it.

Nicholas, however, seemed to be in a far different mood. Though he had just been, yet again, beaten badly at the game, he seemed perfectly fine about it, almost cheery even. Nicholas had clearly come to terms with his pathetic game, but he didn't let that spoil his mood. He was having one of "those days". One of those days when you're so blissfully happy that not even the most depressing of things can seem compromise you. It was bad enough that he had to be so explicit around Herb with his optimism, but furthermore, he had to be singing too.

"Milk and Cereal, Milk and Cereal, Milk and Cereal, Cereal and Milk!" he sung.

"Could you knock it off?" Herb interrupted, "It's not even a funny song."

"I know," Nicholas replied still smiling, "But it's _so_ catchy!" he resumed with his singing. "'A' is for 'Apple', 'J' is for Jacks…"

"I'm serious Nicholas, cut that crap out right now!"

"Sheesh, someone is feeling pretty sore today."

"You're going to feel pretty sore too when I ram my foot right up your…"

Suddenly, a load, animalistic moan went through the hallways. Both Herb & Nicholas turned to see Wayne standing in front of them, slouching with his mouth hanging open.

"Uh, can we help you?" Herb said addressing the upperclassman standing in before him. Wayne said nothing and began walking towards Herb.

"Whoa! We can hear you just fine from here buddy!" Herb added. He was quickly becoming uncomfortable with the situation. Wayne moved in and slowly extended his arm forward, reaching out for Herb.

"Well, well," Nicholas commented, "Looks like someone wants a hug."

"Back off pal!" Herb yelled franticly, "I'm not like that! This ain't Oz yo!"

Wayne grabbed onto Herb and began howling at him through rotting teeth and violent eyes. Even Nicholas was getting the impression that something was wrong.

"Hey easy man," Nicholas said putting his hand on Wayne's shoulder, "We don't want any trouble."

Wayne's right hand swung at Nicholas' chest, sending him back so far that he almost fell over the ledge and onto the first floor. Wayne fixed his sights back on Herb, who was now struggling.

"Get…OFF!" Herb shouted at the creature. He put his hands against his abdomen and gave him a good shove. Wayne stumbled backwards and lost his balance on the stairs. He tumbled down them like a rag doll, giving off sounds of snapping bones and breaking skin. He eventually hit the first floor and went limp. Herb and Nicholas gathered together at the top of the stairs and stared at his lifeless body with fear in their eyes. Herb's knees were knocking together. He was still shaken from the encounter and the idea of going to Juvey for manslaughter wasn't exactly helping him ease his nerves.

"Oh…Crap." Nicholas uttered softly, breaking the silence. A female upperclassman ran down the hall on the first floor and stood over Wayne's body. She stared at it for a second and fixed her sights back up at Herb and Nicholas.

"What in God's name happened?" she said franticly. She was trying not to panic.

"He, he tried to attack me!" Herb stuttered, "I don't know what his problem was or who he is, but he just came at me and hit Nicholas." Herb turned to Nicholas. "You saw it, right?"

"Yeah," Nicholas' upbeat attitude had clearly subsided, "He just attacked us out of the blue!"

"I didn't mean to do it!" Herb added, almost in tears, "I just wanted him off of me!"

"That's not what's important now." The girl answered. She knelt down before Wayne's battered body and put her hand up to his neck. No pulse.

"Dead." She muttered softly to herself. She looked back up at the terrified mid-level students. "Look, this guy needs medical attention. I want you two to go and get…"

She was cut off. Wayne's fist suddenly became reanimated as he punched her through the face and into her skull, shattering it like a ceramic plate. Wayne removed his blood-soaked fist from what little remained of her face, allowing her cranial contents to spill out onto the floor for both Herb & Nicholas to see. Wayne sat up and, grabbing the girl by her shoulder and head, sunk his teeth into her neck, ripping out a good chunk of muscle mass. Tearing it from its tendons, blood gushed out from her veins, splashing Wayne in the face as he feasted upon her corpse. Both Herb and Nicholas stood there at the top of the stairs, staring at the horrific sight of the strange kid coming mysteriously back to life and now devouring this poor girl. Nicholas again, broke the silence.

"Oh…CRAP!"

◊

Sissy strutted down the hall headed for the cafeteria. She had just finished with her cheerleading practices and had worked-up a good appetite. Ulrich was going to play this weekend and, as usual, was expected to play a phenomenal game. Sissy wanted to look good for him and cheer him on. Who knows, this could very well be the weekend that she steals him right under Yumi's nose and makes him her's. Natural Selection at work at it's finest.

Down the hall from her was Herb and Nicholas. They were running for dear life and headed right for. Both slowed-down once they got in talking distance of her. They were sweating franticly, gasping for air and looked as if they had just seen a ghost.

"Whoa!" Sissy said addressing her faithful cohorts, "Where's the fire? You almost knocked me down! You should be more careful next time."

"Sissy," Herb said, still panting for air, "Thank God we found you!"

"Yeah," Nicholas added, "Something really bad has happened!"

"What?!" Sissy responded angrily. She clearly didn't like the sound of that. "What did you two in morons do _this_ time?"

"It wasn't our fault Sissy!" Nicholas pleaded.

"Yeah," Herb added, still short of breath, "He just attacked us and I got scared and Nicholas tried to push him off but he hit him and then I got scared and pushed him and he fell down th…"

"WHOA!" Sissy hollered, cutting Herb off, "Take a Ritalin and chill! I can't understand a word of what you're saying!"

"Sissy!" Herb yelled, "I think he's trying to kill us!" This got Sissy's attention. It was the first intelligible thing she got out of him since both he and Nicholas stopped her on the way to the cafeteria and it was definitely one of the last things she wanted to hear out of them.

"Who's trying to kill you?" Sissy responded seriously.

Before Herb could tell Sissy, a group of blood-soaked, screeching ghouls jogged around the corned. They had noticed Herb & Nicholas run down the hall a few yards back and decided to follow them. They were dead in their sights as the group of ravenous zombies rushed after them.

"Sweet Jesus!" Nicholas yelled, "There's more of them!"

"What the Hell are those things?!" Sissy yelled staring at the hungry beasts with fear in her eyes.

"There's no time to explain!" Herb yelled to Sissy, "We have to keep moving!" Herb grabbed Sissy's arm and began running, Nicholas following.

◊

Odd sunk his teeth deep into the spicy chicken sandwich, taking a hug hunk out of it. His ability to survive the sandwich's heat never failed to impress his friends. Maybe at your school the spicy chicken sandwiches perform less of what you may expect of them, but here at Odd's boarding school, they were exceptional.

Everyone else, including Odd's closest friends, all needed to keep the sandwich in one hand and something to drink in the other. Odd, on the other hand, handled the meal like Superman, sometimes woofing it down without ever having to take a drink. Yumi and the other's just stared at him as he took the sandwich down, bite by bite.

"Y'know Odd," Ulrich said, attempting to deter Odd's bizarre and uncomfortable eating methods, "Eating that thing like that can't be good for you."

"Yeah," Yumi added, "You're going to get an ulcer one of these days."

"Bah," Odd answered swallowing his bite, "It's not like it's going to kill me or anything. Give me a break and let me enjoy my spicy chicken sandwich in peace."

Odd sunk his teeth back into his lunch as the rest of the gang resumed their meal, trying not to think about poor Odd's digestive track. Before the rest of them could even start, Sissy, Herb and Nicholas approached them. Both of them terrified and in a cold sweat.

"Ulrich," Sissy gasped, "We found you! God bless!"

"What do you want Sissy?" Yumi answered. She didn't like having to be around Sissy any longer than she absolutely had to and wanted her out of her and especially Ulrich's hair as soon as humanly possible.

"They're after us!" Nicholas pleaded, staring Yumi in the face, frightening her.

"Who's after you?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know!" Herb responded, "But they're trying to kill us! All of us!"

The entire group went serious. Even Odd put down his sandwich long enough to listen to Sissy and the others.

"_Kill_ you?!" Ulrich replied, "Who are they? What did you do?"

"We didn't do anything!" Herb pleaded. "We were minding our own business until they attacked us, and then they killed this girl in the hall! It was horrible!"

"What were they like?" Yumi asked.

"They were like zombies!" Nicholas answered.

"Zombies?!" Jeremy said to himself.

"Yeah, zombies." Odd said addressing Jeremy. He was still in a humorous mood for some reason, "Y'know, like in the horror movies at 10 o'clock." Jeremy grabbed Odd's sleeve lightly and pulled himself to his ear.

"This isn't funny Odd," Jeremy whispered into Odd's ear, "This could be XANA's doing."

"Where were they last time you saw them?" Ulrich asked, getting out of his seat.

"They, they" Sissy was still gasping for air, "They were right behi…"

The stampede of zombies that chased Sissy and the rest down the hall ran though the doors and into the cafeteria, an appropriate setting. Looking around at the startled students, who now had their attention, they all fixed their sights on the tables of students surrounding them, pouncing over screaming kids and knocking over lunch trays as they tore them apart, eating them alive. Some of the more curious and less intelligent students gathered around to see what the commotion was all about while the remaining members of the student body ran screaming for the front exit. Sissy, Yumi, Ulrich and the rest of them stood there frightened with eyes wide open and jaws hanging to their chests as the entourage of the living dead massacred their fellow classmates. Nicholas broke the silence between them.

"OH…CRAP!!!"

◊


	4. Chapter 2: Resident Sissy

**_CHAPTER 2_****_  
_**_Resident Sissy  
_Or  
_An American Zombie in Paris_

◊

The entire cafeteria was nothing short of a mess. The floor was a swamp of trampled food, blood, broken furniture and a few misplaced limbs here and there. What remained of the student body headed for the doors to the courtyard, despite the fact that the swarm of the undead were blocking it. The wave of panicked living trampled over some of them to get to the exit. The weaker few amongst them were grabbed by the creatures and pulled under to their gruesome demise. Yumi and the rest, however, knew better.

"Well," Odd spoke, "It looks like we're not going to go that way."

"We need to find another way out!" Yumi shouted, "Let's get to higher ground and see if we can escape from the roof!"

The group agreed. Getting an eyeful of their fellow classmates getting their flesh stripped from their bodies was evidence enough to convince Sissy and the others to find another means of escaping. The entire entourage headed for the set of double doors near the back of the cafeteria next to the kitchen where no one sits. Almost everyone else seemed to forget that it was there, fixating their sights on the main entrance. A few of them remembered it, but they were still fixating their sights on the main entrance. Eventually, the stampede of terrified kids made their way out of the cafeteria and into the main hall, racing for the main entrance.

◊

Yumi & the rest barged through a set of double doors amongst a small crowd of other panicking kids. While the others raced towards the main entrance, the gang went and searched for the staircase over on the other side of the school, just a few yards away from them.

"We can get up to the roof from here!" Ulrich shouted pointing at the flight of stairs.

Everyone agreed and wasted no time in beginning their ascent to the roof. Sissy's gang trailed a little behind since they were already a little exhausted from their race to the cafeteria, but the adrenaline in their system kept the aches in their legs from slowing them down too significantly. Almost halfway up the set of stairs, Herb stopped for a moment. He had heard steps and moans from down the hall just behind him. He found this strange since he remembered that all of the zombies were in the cafeteria.

"Wait," Herb interrupted, "Did any of you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Odd asked.

"That sound. It sounds like someone's following us."

The sound of feet treading on tile floor could be heard around the corner behind him.

"It's probably just another student Herb." Sissy replied, aggravated and terrified, "Quit bothering us with it and keep moving!"

"No," Herb replied, "I think it's something else."

Isaiah slouched from around the corner, moaning. He was the only zombie that had followed the rest of the kids out through the doors in the back of the cafeteria. He noticed Sissy & the rest first and had promptly followed them. His face was splattered with blood and his eyes were wild and open. He turned his head to see the entire group of youngsters, standing on the staircase, looking right back at him.

"Alright," Odd said, "Now I know that's not another student."

"RUN!" Yumi screamed, and everyone complied.

The stairwell was filled with the rumble of feet running up them as the group hurried to the second floor. Isaiah followed just behind them, increasing his speed to a light jog, the most his decomposing brain would allow his dead body. Sissy, Nicholas, and Herb's adrenaline level shot to maximum capacity, any pain that was left in their legs had now completely subsided. Gasping for breath and sweating buckets, the group finally made it to the second floor, Isaiah following right behind them, snarling and hissing.

"What in the Hell are these things Herb?" Ulrich shouted.

"I don't know!" Herb answered, "Like I said, we were almost attacked by one in the hall and then it killed some girl!"

"Less talkie, more runnie!" yelled Odd, looking behind him to see Isaiah starting to gain on them.

Yumi pointed to a storage closet in the distance, "We can lock ourselves in there!"

Yumi got the closet, kicking in the door. She held it open for the rest of the group, who wasted no time in crowding into the dark, small room. Boxes of old, unused equipment were stacked-up high. Many containing old textbooks, gym equipment, and other school supplies. Where the rest of the space was concerned rested damaged and outdated desks. What remained of walking room was barely enough for the entire group, who was now all inside the room and struggling with the door.

Just as the last person entered, Yumi quickly went to close the door but Isaiah was still able to get this left hand into the small crack of the door. Yumi, Ulrich and Odd were struggling to close the door. If they wanted too, they might have tried just pushing his hand out, but no one was exactly up to making and physical contact with him. Instead, they just tried to push on the door some more, hoping that maybe Isaiah would lose his grip or, just possibly, they would be able to break his hand right off. The skin on Isaiah's was already beginning to break, his cold blood running down the crack of the door and into a small puddle on the floor. Regardless, his grip remained unbending.

"Dammit!" Ulrich hollered, "If we don't do something fast, he'll break right through this door!"

"Push harder!" Yumi yelled back at Ulrich.

"I don't think we can Yumi!" Odd answered. They were all putting their weight onto the door, but Isaiah, still screaming and howling like a madman, was beginning to slam his own weight onto the door. The trio's hold on the door was about to give way. Sissy, sweating and preparing to lose her sanity took notice. Her hair was standing on end at the sight of Isaiah's bloody hand emerging from the bright hallway as he hissed and screamed. Sissy began looking around the room for anything she could possibly use to kill it. If it was going to break in and kill them all, at last she wasn't going to go down without a fight. Her eyes fixated on a box of gym equipment. She dove for the cardboard box and began rummaging through it. Eventually she came across an aluminum bat. Gripping it tightly with both hands, she jerked the weapon out of the box, spilling it on the floor; it's other various contents hitting the tile with loud clanks as they rolled about the closet.

"Try it," Sissy quietly hissed to herself, "I'd just like to see you try it."

Isaiah slammed his mass against the door once more, sending Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich to the floor. Isaiah stood there in the threshold hissing, his shadow casting itself over the others in the room.

"DIE!" Sissy screamed as she jumped over Odd and charged at Isaiah. Ping! She swung the bat with all her strength, the force of the blow sending Isaiah to the floor. He began to hiss and screech loudly at Sissy. The force of the bat had created a small crater at the top-left side of his soft, rotting skull, blood gushing out of it in a profusely manner. Sissy, her eyes now closed and screaming at the top of her lungs for his death, brought the bat down on top of him once more and then again, and again. Fueled solely on adrenaline, she continued to bring the aluminum bat down onto Isaiah's skull with a relentless and unearthly force. After about the sixth or seventh blow, Isaiah finally went limp and quiet, but Sissy's screaming and closed eyes had prevented her from noticing this. Instead, she continued to pound on Isaiah's skull, or at least what remained of it as everyone in the room behind her watched in horror.

"Sweet Jesus, does she even know that it's dead yet?" Nicholas asked Herb.

"I don't know," Herb responded, "But I think I'm going to be sick."

By this time Isaiah's skull had caved-in completely. His face was reduced to skull fragments, eyes, crushed to jelly, and his brain, a splattered wad of pulp. Still, Sissy continued to her assault.

"Someone should really try to stop her." Odd said.

"Heh, don't look at me!" Jeremy responded. Yumi got up to her feet and slowly approached Sissy from behind, trying to avoid getting hit by the bat. She decided not to touch Sissy in fear that she may think her to be a zombie too and come at her with her feminine fists of fury. Instead, she stood about two feet behind her, cupped her mouth with her hands, and yelled at Sissy.

"Sissy!" Yumi hollered. No response.

"**SISSY!**" Yumi tried again. Sissy, opening her eyes, pivoted and turned to Yumi, clenching the bat and staring angrily at her.

"What?!" she yelled. Yumi uncupped her mouth, but continued to yell at her.

"I think it's safe to say that you killed it!"

Sissy's angry physiognomy subsided and was replaced with a look of disbelief. She turned to Isaiah's now re-dead body and looked at what remained of his skull. One minute ago, it was armed with an angry face, jagged teeth and bleached eyes. Now all that remained was a curry of shattered skull fragments and gray matter. Sissy dropped her bat and placed her hand over her mouth in disgust at what she saw. A flow of vomit peaked to the top of her throat, but to avoid embarrassment, was able to choke it down before she regurgitated it back up. She took a few steps back into the room and tripped over Ulrich's leg, falling to the floor. She seemed unfazed at this however, still covering her mouth and gazing in disbelief at her work.

Yumi poke her head out of the door for a moment and looked around. Noticing that no one else was there, she reached for the blood and tissue stained bat and quickly slammed the door shut, locking it. Everyone sat back down on the floor as their heartbeats slowed back down to a normal pace. With the exception of a few gasps for air, the room was mostly silent. No one knew exactly what to say in regards to what they just saw Sissy do. Not did she do what was possibly the most violent thing they ever had witnessed, but she actually had just saved all their lives. After a moment of recovery, Odd turned to Sissy and spoke up.

"Damn, you go girl."

◊

Panicked, confused, and a little bloody, the remainder of the student body raced down the halls; Some with complete disregard for others, trampling and shoving other students out of the way as they attempted to elude the entourage of zombies chasing them only a few yards behind them. Jim, who was also running with the group, shouted requests to "remain calm" and "exit in an orderly fashion". His attempts were futile of course. The students were screaming far too loudly to hear him and even if they could, they wouldn't comply anyway.

Still being trailed by the hoard of the undead, the group of panicked students turned the corner and headed further down the hall towards the main entrance, only to find it blocked off by a second, and equally massive, group of zombies. They caught them on sight and the group screamed in terror at their presence. The hoard at the entrance lunged towards them as the group that had trailed them from the cafeteria closed in.

The student's dismay was only rivaled by their confusion. Many were unsure what to do. They clearly hadn't counted on there being a second group awaiting them at the exit, but alas there was, and now their fate was sealed. Some of the student's tried the previous tactic of trampling the zombies, but some went towards the zombies at the front while others did a complete 180 and try to overtake the zombies behind them. Both were caught in the mess and were promptly torn to pieces, screaming and bleeding madly in front of their peers. Some clawed at the walls, desperately trying to crawl through the ceiling tiles and somehow out the zombies reach, but they were closing in way too fast.

Each and everyone of them were gnawed, torn, butchered, and dismembered screaming. In a matter of seconds, the floor below them turned into a pool of blood and flesh.

◊

The screams reached the closet where the survivors were holed-up in. There was nothing in the room to drown them out other than Sissy's frantic panting. Swearing, screaming, and even the sounds of torn limbs rose up from the floor and flooded the room. It was impossible to ignore and it sent a chill down everyone's spine. After a moment of listening to the mass murder, Ulrich became fed up with it and decided to break the silence between them.

"My God. They're killing them all down there!"

"Gee, brilliant observation Captain Obvious." Herb replied with a scowl.

"Hey, eat me Herb!" Ulrich shot back.

"Both of you shut up!" Yumi interrupted, "We need to stop concerning ourselves with what's going on downstairs and start thinking of way to get to the roof from here without being detected."

"Excuse me?!" Sissy responded, "Are you implying that we actual go out there?!" Sissy let out a sarcastic laugh, "Like Hell! No, we're not going to do that."

"Well then Houdini, mind telling me your plan on how to get us out of here?" Yumi asked.

Sissy pointed to a small window in the room, "How about out that window?"

Nicholas got up and went to the window and tried to open it.

"No good, it's bolted down."

"Crap," Odd responded, "Looks like we're going to have to take the roof."

By this time, the screaming from downstairs had stopped. It was safe to say that everyone on the first floor had been killed.

"It's stopped." Jeremy whispered.

"Jesus," Ulrich said to himself, "They're all dead!"

"Did I not just tell you to shut up about that?!" Yumi responded, "If we're going to get out of this mess then we're going to have to drop that pessimistic attitude."

"Hey!" Nicholas interrupted, "There's a police car out here!"

Everyone got to their feet and crowded around the window. A police cruiser pulled into the school and stopped slowly just a short distance away from the main entrance.

"Someone must have called the police before those things downstairs took them over!" Sissy added.

Two officers emerged from their vehicles. Closing the doors to the cruiser shut, they walked casually to the front entrance, completely unaware of what was inside.

"There's only two of them?!" Sissy shouted.

"My God!" Jeremy gasped, "They're going to kill both of them!"

The survivors began banging their fists on the glass of the window and yelling, trying to get the attention of the police officers heading towards the main entrance, but they didn't seem to notice. Instead, they continued onto the main entrance. Suddenly, the officers quickly jumped back and reached for their weapons. All the zombies on the first floor flooded into the courtyard and charged at the officers. They fired a few rounds at the crowd, but it only fazed a few zombies that we shot in the limbs. The men then made a hasty retreat to the cruiser, but were quickly overtaken by the mass of undead that tackled them to the ground. One officer was sent to the ground were the zombies quickly bore their hands into his back and proceeded to pull out whatever organ they could muster; Kidneys, intestines, whatever they got to first. The other poor sap quickly ran out of ammo and was meet with a small girl jumping up to take a chunk out of his throat. As the cop dropped to his knees, the others surrounded him and quickly proceeded to dismantle him.

Many of the survivors, namely Sissy turned away from the window and closed their ears. They didn't want to see, hear, or even imagine what fate awaited the men outside. All they knew was that they were now dead and that was more than enough for them.

"Well," Odd commented, "It looks like we won't be escaping through the roof."

"Sweet Jesus!" Herb yelled, "This must be some kind of nightmare!" He pulled himself away from the window and fell to his knees. He felt like vomiting as he laid their choking and gasping, but he only spat up a little. The remaining amount of adrenaline in his system was keeping his stomach from purging itself, some sort of subconscious way of keeping itself in control.

Ulrich walked away from the window and sat down on one the old desks. "Now what? Odd's right, we can't get out through the roof! Those…things have taken over the courtyard. Going out there now would be suicide."

"It's futile!" Herb screamed as he got back to his feet, "There's no way out! We're trapped in here! Game over man! Game over!"

Sissy walked up to Herb, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Shut up Herb! Your negative attitude is beginning to seriously piss me off!"

Nicholas broke the two up. "Sissy, calm down! I'm sure there's a way out of this. We'll figure it out."

Jeremy turned to Yumi, who was the only person still looking outside the window at the damage below. "Any ideas?"

"I just thought of something." Yumi spoke. Everyone turned to listen to her. It was clear that she was the dominant one in this operation. "It looks like all the zombies are out on the courtyard now."

"So?" Sissy angrily implied. Yumi turned to her with a stern look on her face.

"So, that means that there's none of them left in the building. We can go downstairs, lock them out, and search the school for anything that might help us out of here."

"What!?" Sissy responded, "Go downstairs, where those things can see us!?"

"Yeah," Nicholas added, "And what if there's still a few down there?"

"If there's only a few, we could probably take them out." Yumi answered optimistically, "We have bats and things in here."

"Yeah," Odd added, "We all saw how Sissy took out that one outside the door! If Sissy can kill one, I'm sure I can bag me a few!"

"Good," Yumi said smiling. She handed Odd a bat, "Then you can go down there with me."

Odd stared at the bat. "Me and my big mouth." Odd grudgingly took the bat from Yumi. Yumi lifted her head and faced the rest of the group.

"There's only so many bats in here," she addressed to the group, "So Ulrich, Jeremy, Nicholas, Herb, you're coming with us. Everyone else stay here."

"I'm not going down there!" Herb pleaded.

"Don't be such a pansy." Ulrich shouted, "Be a man about it."

"If not wanting to get torn apart by some blood-sucking freak means that I'm a pansy then sign me up because there's no way in Hell I'm going down there."

"Fine." Yumi answered, "Be worthless. We're going down there."

The group each grabbed a bat from the floor and prepared to head outside. Just as Yumi was about to turn the knob, Herb spoke up.

"Yumi!"

"Yes Herb?"

Herb was silent for a moment. He was hurt by Yumi's comments, but he knew that she was right. He didn't want to feel useless. More importantly, he didn't want to be useless. He quickly though of something he could do to help out the group, but he didn't want to go downstairs. Suddenly, he remembered a radio that was in one of the classrooms down the hall from here on the second floor.

"I…I think there's a radio in one of the classrooms near here. Maybe I could go and get it? It may help."

Yumi stared at Herb. She had seen right through this. She knew that Herb just wanted to seem useful, but didn't want to put himself in the line of fire. Yumi, however, had a soft spot. She wasn't going to shut Herb down, she just wasn't like that. However, she didn't want to come off soft and let him off the hook. She turned to Jeremy.

"Jeremy," she commanded, "You go with him. If you see a zombie, you know what to do."

Jeremy nodded and turned to Herb. "Grab your bat."

Herb nodded back at Jeremy and reached for an aluminum bat lying near the box. Yumi turned to Sissy.

"Sissy, stay here and keep the door open for us in case we need to retreat back."

Sissy, who was now sitting on the floor, nodded. Normally she would have protested Yumi ordering her around, but her recent run-ins with the living dead had left her ability to argue rather wanting.

Yumi slowly turned the door to reveal an empty hall, aside from the cold, dead, headless body in front of the door.

◊

Yumi and the rest slowly set foot down on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. They were tightly clenching their bats, fearing some surprise attack from the flesh eating creeps, but they found the halls around them to be rather quiet and vacant. Yumi turned to the rest of the group who were standing close behind her.

"It's clear." She whispered, "Let's move out."

The group nodded as they crept down the halls behind her and made their way to the corner. Yumi peeked around it to find a messy hallway, stained with gallons upon gallons of lukewarm blood, entrails, and dismembered bodies that were beyond the hope of reanimation. As she expected, all of the zombies poured out onto the courtyard and the entrance doors were closed. It was relatively bright outside as it was still afternoon, but Yumi was still able to make out some of what had been going on outside. Most of the zombies were a reasonable distance away from the door as they surrounded the police cruisers in the courtyard, and furthermore, the vast majority had their backs turned to them. Yumi turned her head and faced the group.

"Alright. It's clear down there and all the zombies seemed to be a good distance from the doors. I must warn you though, it's really messy down there. Try not to slip and fall on all the blood."

The group nodded in response. They were clearly a little distraught over Yumi's blood comment, but decided not to dwell on it. Besides, they were going to have a lot of time for that in a moment.

They turned slowly and descended down the hall Yumi squinted, trying to keep the tattered bodies out of her field of vision. Nicholas and Ulrich did the same thing. Odd walked past the dismembered body of an unfamiliar student whose arm was clearly torn off at the elbow. He then spoke to it.

"What's the matter pal? Need a hand?" Odd then laughed, "Oh man, I'm going to have to write that one down."

"Quit joking around Odd!" Ulrich said turning to Odd. Odd shrugged and turned towards the door.

Eventually, the group made it to the doors and quickly locked them, without being detected by the creatures looking outside.

"Wow, that was easy." Nicholas exclaimed.

"Yeah," Ulrich added, "I don't see what Herb was so scared off. He's about as gutless as these cold, rotting corpses."

"Damn!" Odd responded, "I'm going to have to write that one down too!"

"Enough chit-chat," Yumi interrupted, "Let's get back to the closet upstairs and inform everyone. It's now safe to move around."

Everyone turned in agreement and walked back upstairs, treading bloody footmarks behind them.

◊

"So Herb," Jeremy asked, "You like Sissy huh?"

Herb didn't respond. Instead he kept on walking.

"Don't act like you didn't hear me. I'm asking you a question."

"I don't think that's any of your business." Herb responded.

"You don't have to act like a jerk, I'm only trying to be friendly."

"I don't care, it's still none of your business."

"Y'know," Jeremy implied, "It's that attitude that keeps her from liking you back."

"What?!" Herb shouted, turning to Jeremy. His commentary clearly annoyed him.

"Hey, don't get mad at me! I'm not the one acting like a wuss! Y'know why Sissy likes Ulrich so much?"

Herb didn't respond, knowing the question was rhetorical.

"Because he went downstairs with Yumi and the rest!" Jeremy continued, "He didn't complain or whine about it like you did. He has courage and guts and when you whined and moped back there in front of Sissy, you practically just submitted to him. Heck, even Nicholas went down there!"

"Hey! For all you know, they're down there getting killed by those things!" Herb answered.

"Maybe so, but you could be down there helping them out right now! Heck, even I could be down there helping them out too! But no, you insist on going after this worthless radio that we're not even sure is here! The only reason Yumi didn't tear you down is because she didn't want to make you look even worse than you made yourself look in front of Sissy. She has shame, something else you don't have."

Herb clammed-up. He was now infuriated with Jeremy, but didn't have anything to say in his defense. Jeremy had him all figured out and it got under his skin.

"Shut up and help me find that radio!" Herb insisted.

"Whatever," Jeremy replied sarcastically, "You're the leader."

The both of them trekked down the hall a little more until they got to an empty classroom with the lights turned out. Herb slowly opened up the door and turned on the lights. He scanned the room and found the radio sitting on a metal TV cart in the corner. He turned to Jeremy.

"HA! See, there it is! Just like I said." A small victory for Herb.

They both walked into the room and, as Herb approached the radio, he turned the knobs on it and it clicked on, letting out a hiss of static.

"And it still works! I told you!"

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "C'mon, let's just get this thing back to the closet."

Both boys headed for the door, making sure to turn the lights back off as they left.

◊

A knock came at the closet door, which Sissy was sitting only a few feet away from. It startled her for a moment, but a voice came through ensured her comfort.

"Sissy," Yumi exclaimed, "It's us and we're back. Open up."

Sissy got to her feet and slowly approached the door, slightly cracking it open and looking outside.

"Let us in Sissy," Ulrich demanded, "We're all here."

Sissy opened up the door for them to come in. "Well thank God you're back! So what's it like down there?"

"It was clear," Ulrich answered, "We locked the doors so no one can get it. Just like Yumi expected, nobody was down there."

"Well," Odd added, "There were some bodies down there, but they were mostly just scattered all over the place."

Nicholas let out a slight chuckle as Yumi turned to Odd with a scowl.

"Not funny." She whispered.

"We're back!" Jeremy yelled to them from the distance, "And we found Herb's radio."

"Yeah, and it still works!" Herb added happily. "Look!"

Herb messed with the tuner on the radio as he surfed through seas of static past pieces of pop songs and commercials. Eventually, Herb got to a station and the words "dead" and "walking" came through the speakers.

"Stop!" Yumi demanded, "Stop it on that station."

Herb took his hand off of the tuner and everyone closed in around the radio to listen in.

"…reports of gray-skinned people roaming the countryside and attacking people at random…"

"Turn it up." Odd asked. Herb reached for the volume control and turned it up for everyone to clearly hear,

"Witnesses have claimed that these unusual-looking assailants have a 'dead-like appearance' and attack random, nearby people with their bare hands and…" there was a rustle of papers and a moment of silence, "…consume the flesh of their attackers. Reported sightings of these bizarre attackers have been made all through out northern France, in both the city and country. The French government have urged citizens to stay inside their homes and not approach one of these strange attackers if one is spotted, instead, to contact the local authorities."

"Good Lord!" Ulrich responded, "It's not just here!"

◊

Though most of them had already been consumed, there were still a few zombies left crowding around the officer's dead bodies, picking off what little they could from the already mangled bodies. The radio from the cruiser suddenly clicked-on as the sound of a woman's voice came through the other side.

"Will Car 54 please respond with a status report. I repeat, Car 54, where are you?"

One of the zombies near the open door of the cruiser took notice to this and crept his way into the cruiser. He slowly extended his hand outward, grasping it with its bony hand. He pressed the receiver up to his greasy, blood-soaked mouth and spoke into it.

"Send…more…cops…"


	5. Chapter 3: Napalm ReDeath

**_CHAPTER 3  
_**_Napalm Re-Death  
_Or  
_How to Handle the Backlash of an International Bio-Terrorism Epidemic with Simple Items that You, by a Set of Strange and Unusual Coincidences, May Just Happen to Have Lying Around the House (Excluding Saran Wrap)_

◊

The group had moved into a large science classroom on the second floor of the classrooms. The original proposed plan was to move into the cafeteria where it was a bit more spacious, but the piles upon piles of dead bodies amongst the pools of blood made it a rather uncomfortable place to make camp. They had gathered around the radio placed on the teacher's desk at the front of the classroom. Some amongst them who had not had the time to eat lunch were snacking on sandwiches which they had taken from the cafeteria only minutes earlier.

They had decided to leave it on the news. It wasn't exactly appropriate for eating lunch to, especially since the topic of the day just happened to be the disgusting creatures outside who had just killed two police officers, but they didn't want to miss anything that would be important.

Jeremy, who still wasn't very hungry due to all of the things he had seen in the past couple of hours, sat close to the radio, which was turned to medium volume. Jeremy was eagerly awaiting news on a possible extraction from the school or some other faint gleam of hope to get him out of this classroom fortress and, possibly, to somewhere he could contact Aelita.

For the past few minutes, it had been nothing but an interview with someone from the CDC in regards to the incident and the announcer repeating himself. "Reports of strange assailants. Do not engage. Stay inside. Et cetera." A rustle of papers came through the radio as the announcer on the other side began reading off of what he was just handed.

"We've just got this in," he announced as he began to read the papers, "Here we have a following list of proven methods of how to properly demobilize these attackers."

"Everyone, be quiet!" Jeremy spoke loudly as he turned up the volume to drown out the sound of crunching chips and small chit-chat. The radio announcer continued.

"The first proven method of demobilization is by causing serious amounts of physical damage to the brain."

"No kidding." Odd commented as he stared at Sissy. Jeremy gestured to Odd to be quiet. The announcer resumed.

"This can be done by the usage of a truncheon or a firearm. The second method is decapitation. Some reports have claimed that even though the assailants still show signs of brain activity after decapitation, it will, however, prevent mobilization. The third method is by inducing a massive electric surge through the assailants bodies. Please note that tasers and stun guns have proven ineffective. Again, tasers and stun guns are ineffective. And lastly, by complete incineration, meaning burning the assailants to a point of demobilization."

"Incineration…" Herb spoke quietly to himself.

"However," the announcer continued, "French officials are still urging citizens to not attempt to confront the assailants. This is only for reference to those who may need to take action against them in the case of the event that they are in significant danger and unable to contact an officer."

"Like us." Yumi spoke.

"Too bad we can't use any of the information." Nicholas added.

"Yeah," Odd said interrupting, "It's not like they're going to line up and let us beat the snot out of them."

"What about the electrocution?" Sissy implied.

"And exactly how are we going to pull that off?" Jeremy commented, "Build a giant bathtub, lure them in it and toss in a toaster? Get serious."

"We could incinerate them." Herb added. Everyone paused for a moment and stared at Herb.

"With what Herb?" Ulrich replied, "Are we going to hold a magnifying glass under each and every one of them until they fry like ants? Good plan Herb. That'll only take the remainder of our natural lives."

"No, not like that." Herb shot back, "I'm talking about napalm."

Everyone continued to stare at Herb, trying their best to process the absurdity of what he just said to them.

"What the Hell are you talking about Herb?!" Odd shouted.

"I'm sorry Herb, but Odd's right." Yumi added, "How exactly are we supposed to get our hands on enough napalm to kill those things outside?"

"No," Herb continued, "I'm talking about making napalm."

Again, everyone was quiet.

"Go on." Jeremy said.

"You can make homemade napalm by mixing equal parts orange juice concentrate and gasoline, amongst other things."

"Really?" Nicholas asked.

"Yeah. I think we can get all those things right here in the classrooms if we look hard enough!"

A moment of silence came between the group as they processed Herb's plan. It seemed a little absurd and possibly doomed to fail, but there were no other proposed ideas that seemed legit and effective.

"Well, it's worth a shot." Yumi said.

"Good!" Herb said smiling. "There should be some supplies in the basement and perhaps some orange juice concentrate in the kitchen!"

"Then it's settled," Yumi proclaimed, getting to her feet, "Herb, Ulrich, Nicholas, Jeremy, you four go to the basement and get what you need there. Me and Odd will head to the kitchen and get what we need. Sissy, you stay here and try to see if you can get in contact with anyone on your cell phone."

Sissy nodded her head in compliance.

"Don't forget to take your weapon with you everyone," Yumi added just before they all left, "Just in case."

◊

"Equal parts gasoline and equal parts orange juice concentrate, huh?" Ulrich said.

"That's right." Herb responded.

The entire group was on the second floor. They had already passed the blood-splattered lobby and were approaching the entrance to the basement.

"Where do you get this stuff from?" Jeremy asked Herb.

"Books." Herb replied vaguely.

"What kind of books, Herb?" Jeremy asked, curiously questioning Herb.

"Just books."

"What a load of crap." Ulrich said with a hint of frustration, "You're holding back on us."

Herb stopped walking so he could turn to face Ulrich. "Look, I rather not go through all the dirty details. Let's just leave it at 'I read it somewhere and I know it for a fact'." Herb turned to face the hallway and began walking. "End of story…"

"What's next?" Jeremy added, "Grenades made out of socks?"

"Why," Herb responded smiling indifferently, "You want some sock grenades too?"

Nicholas, Jeremy, and Ulrich stopped and looked at each other for a moment as Herb continued walking. Herb finally came to a door near the end of the hall.

"Here we are guys," Herb yelled back at the group cheerfully, "Let's get that equipment!"

Herb opened the door and looked-down the staircase only to find a pool of water about two and a half feet deep.

"What the Hell?!" Herb yelled.

The rest of the group clenched their bats and ran towards Herb, expecting the worse.

"What is it Herb?" Ulrich asked as he approached Herb.

"It's the basement!" Herb answered, still staring in disbelief, "It's flooding!"

Everyone gathered behind Herb to see for themselves. Sure enough, the basement was filled with water and, if you listened closely, you could hear water spraying a good distance down the hall.

"Sweet Jesus!" Nicholas said, "How'd this happen?"

"Think this may have something to do with those zombies outside?" Ulrich asked the group.

"Don't know," Jeremy answered, "But what I do know is that we need to go ahead and get whatever we need out of here before the entire basement floods."

"Good point," Ulrich added. "Let's get ready."

Ulrich took off his socks and shoes and began rolling up his pants legs. Everyone noticed and did the same. Leaving their footwear at the top of the stairs, the four boys descended into the basement.

"Jesus it's cold!" Herb complained as he set foot into the freezing water.

"Hey, this was your idea." Ulrich responded, "So keep your complaints to yourself."

"Watch your step everyone," Jeremy requested, "There might be broken glass at the bottom for all we know, so step lightly."

"It's so damn cold down here, I don't think my numb feet would be able to feel it if I stepped on anything!" Nicholas commented.

"No joke." Herb added.

While wallowing through the cold water, Ulrich caught a glimpse of something at the end of the corridor, "Hey, what's that over there?"

"Dunno." Nicholas responded, noticing the same pipe, "Let's check it out."

The kids goose-waddled their way through the numbingly cold water and towards the direction of the broken pipe, admiring, for a moment, the large axe still embedded in the gash where the water was spewing from.

"Damn," Nicholas said, "Now that's what I call a blatant act of vandalism."

"Looks like someone had a serious issue with the plumbing." Jeremy added.

"Well, I don't know what happened here, but I think it would be best if we got what we came for and get out of here before things gets worse." Ulrich added.

Everyone agreed and began searching through the water for any useful materials they could use for the napalm.

"Hey!" Herb exclaimed, "I think I found something!"

Everyone turned to Herb, who, from the cold water, picked up two canisters of gasoline.

"There's more here." Herb added. "Let's get all that we can."

Everyone gathered around Herb and picked up numerous cans of gasoline, paint, buckets for mixing, and other materials for the napalm.

"Alright, that's all we need." Ulrich said grabbing the last mixing material.

"I think that's about all we can carry." Nicholas added, making room in a bucket he was carrying for all his materials.

"Good," Jeremy responded, "Now let's get out of here before we all catch hypothermia."

The boys waddled back to the entrance with all their materials, leaving the axe embedded in the pipe still untouched.

◊

"Dammit!" Sissy hissed to herself as she ended her call, "Why won't anyone pick up!?"

Sissy had been trying to contact just about everyone she could think of. Police, hospitals, and just recently, her own father. Though disgruntled, she understood the turmoil that the officials were going through outside, but not being able to get in touch with her father was driving her insane. If it was just a busy signal, then it would have been fine, but that wasn't the case. The call was getting through alright, but no one on the other side was answering. Sissy didn't want to consider what was probably inevitable.

A knock came on the door and Yumi's voice came through.

"Sissy, it's me and Odd. We're back and our hands are full. Open up."

Sissy set her phone back on the counter and headed to the door opening it up for the two of them who were carrying gallons upon gallons of the frozen juice.

"Thanks Sissy." Yumi said as she and Odd walked into the room and placed the stuff on the tables.

"Good thing we found this stuff," Odd grunted placing the concentrate on the table next to Yumi's, "I hope Herb and the rest have been having good luck finding their materials."

"Someone call?" Herb said smiling as he and the rest came through the door with the buckets of additional materials.

"Hey!" Odd exclaimed smiling, "Looks like you lucked out."

"Yeah." Ulrich said placing the heavy buckets on the floor, "Good thing we got back when we did; my arms felt like they were getting ready to fall off."

"You guys got the orange juice concentrate?" Nicholas asked.

Odd smiled and placed his hand on top of the jugs of the stuff he and Yumi just hauled from downstairs.

"I don't know Nicholas," Odd replied sarcastically, "Does it look like we found it."

Everyone shared a brief laugh for a moment. When it died down, Jeremy changed the subject.

"The basement is flooding."

This caught both Yumi, Odd, and Sissy's attention as they stared at Jeremy sternly.

"The basement is what?" Yumi asked.

"The basement, it's flooding." Jeremy repeated, pushing his glasses back onto his face.

"Yeah," Herb added, "Someone took an axe and tried to break the water pipe in basement open."

"And judging from the looks of it," Ulrich said finishing Herb's sentence, "It looks like they succeeded."

"It's only about knee deep down there." Jeremy explained, "So I'd say it happened only a few hours ago."

"Perhaps some was just going for one of the zombies and missed?" Odd asked trying his best to understand the situation.

"I don't think so." Herb answered, "We didn't see any zombies or dead bodies down there."

"So it happened before the zombies took over?" Yumi asked.

"Who cares?!" Sissy had grown tired of the conversation, "We got all the materials, so lets get started on that napalm."

"Sissy's right." Ulrich commented, "The sooner we kill those things outside, the sooner we can get to safety."

"Let's head to the roof.", Herb suggested, "There's probably going to be some fumes to it would be better to make it up there so that it'll ventilate better."

"Good thing we picked these up from the janitor's closet." Odd said pulling out a box of paper masks from his back pocket and passing them to Jeremy.  
"Oh yeah," Jeremy replied smiling, "These will definitely help."

"Alright everyone," Yumi commanded, "Let's get to the roof."

Everyone grabbed a bucket or jug as Herb went for the radio. Once by one, they headed out the door with the materials. Herb, being the last one out, made sure to turn off the lights on his way out.

◊

"Any answers yet?" Milly asked.

"No," Tamiya answered, "And my battery is running low."

Both girls were hiding out in a stall in the girl's restroom, away from where the other zombies roaming around in the dormitories were. Like Sissy, they had been trying to reach someone outside that could help them, but their efforts were fruitless.

"We need to get out of here." Tamiya continued, "I need to recharge my phone."

"I know," Milly said agreeing, "And I'm starving. We need food."

"Well, then; what do you propose we do?"

Both knew the only answer to that question, they just didn't want to come to terms with it. In order to reach Tamiya's charger or food, they we're going to have to go outside and head there by foot. Both stared at each other for a moment, coming to terms with what had to be done in order to escape.

"I'll go check outside." Milly whispered to Tamiya.

"B-Be careful."

Milly tip-toed over to the door. With shaking hands, she slowly pushed the door open and looked down the hallway, which was vacant. She looked the other way, again, to find the hall vacant. Moans and hisses echoed through the halls from where some of the other zombies were. Milly, after surveying the empty halls, closed the door and quickly crept over to Tamiya.

"It's clear out there. I think we can make it to our room if we do it quickly and quietly."

"A-are you sure?"

"We don't have a choice. We can't lock this place. If they don't come in here and kill us, we'll starve to death first."

Tamiya was quiet for a moment as she tried to regain her composure. "All right. Let's do this."

Still clenching her cell phone Tamiya walked behind Milly as they headed out of the restroom. They're legs still clicking together as they did. As they crept down the hall, they had to stop many times to regain their balance. Their shaking legs almost caused them to trip and fall at many times. Almost halfway down the hall, Tamiya asked Milly to stop.

"Milly, I don't know if I can make it. I'm too scared."

Milly turned to Tamiya and grabbed her shoulders. "Don't worry, we're almost there. Once we're there, we can get your cha…"

A zombie slammed himself against the glass window of a door that the two girls were leaning against. Noticing them, he let out a loud hiss, scaring the girls. Both girls quickly dove into the room across the hall from them and quickly locked the door. The zombie outside busted through the glass window, followed about by a dozen other of his kind. They began slamming their fists against the hard, wooden door, that Milly and Tamiya were locked behind, screeching at the two terrified girls behind it.

"We shouldn't have left the bathroom!" Tamiya panicked.

Milly looked at Tamiya and noticed that her hands were empty. "Tamiya, where's your phone?!"

Tamiya checked her hands and then all her pockets. "I must have dropped it outside when that guy scared us! No! We can't go back out there to get it! Those things'll kill us!"

"Don't worry Tamiya," Milly said placing her hand on her shoulder, "The door's locked. We're safe in here for the meantime."

The zombies outside the room began pushing themselves on the heavy door, letting out a light creaking noise.

◊

"How's it coming guys?" Yumi yelled out to the boys who were mixing and preparing the napalm over on the back side of the room. Everyone was now on the roof, camping out as Herb and the rest prepared the incendiary weapon. Each had paper masks strapped to their face to keep them from inhaling too much of the gasoline fumes.

"We're almost ready." Ulrich answered, lifting his head from his mixing bucket, "Just a few more moments."

"Alright," Yumi responded. She turned to Sissy who was sitting down and attempting to call her father. "Sissy, gotten through to anyone yet?"

Sissy didn't respond. She was rocking in place, frightened out of her mind with her phone pressed against her ear. Yumi reached out and shook Sissy's shoulder. Sissy jumped and turned to Yumi.

"Sissy!" Yumi repeated, "Have you gotten through to anyone yet?"

Sissy shook her head no and focused her attention back onto her phone call.

"Who are you trying to call Sissy?" Yumi asked. No response. "It's your father isn't it?!"

Again, Sissy gave no response. She didn't have to, Yumi had already figured it out.

"Dammit Sissy!" Yumi yelled, "I thought we agreed to focus our calls on the police!"

"We can't get through to the police!" Sissy yelled back getting to her feet, "It's useless! Their lines are all busy and when I do get through, no one ever responds!"

"No one's responding over at your Dad's phone either Sissy! Your father is second priority! We need to get in touch with the police!"

"Why?! So they can just get killed like those last two were? Oh yeah, that was really helpful. My knights in shining armor!"

"And what exactly can your Dad give us that the police can't? For all we know, your pops is dead!"

"Don't say that!" Sissy dropped her phone and balled-up her fists, preparing to knock Yumi's lights out. Ulrich wedged himself between the two girls, attempting to break-up an ugly situation.

"Sissy, sit back down and try to call the police." Ulrich turned to Yumi as the agitated Sissy sat back down on the gravel, reached for her phone and resumed her attempts, "Yumi, we can't afford to agitate anyone. The only way we're going to get through this is if we pull together. So let's try not to self-destruct here alright?"

Yumi was feeling both embarrassed and enraged. She had just realized the error of what she had done, but Sissy's insubordination and aggressive attitude was really burning her ass and she wasn't going to take it. Not from Sissy, not from anyone.

"Equal parts orange juice concentrate and gasoline," Odd said to himself mixing the ingredients, "Who would of thought."

"Oh yeah," Herb replied, looking up at Odd, "You can make all sorts of dangerous weapons with stuff lying around your house."

"Wow," Odd said laughing, "You're like the Martha Stewart of weapons of mass destruction."

Herb laughed and picked up the bucket of the explosive goo. "Equal parts gasoline and orange juice makes for an ideal incendiary weapon for disposing of flesh-eating zombies. It's a good thing."

Both of them laughed loudly at the joke. Ulrich broke it up between them.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Oh, me and Herb was just making light of the situation."

"Is that stuff ready yet?"

"Sure is." Herb said standing back up and stretching his back, "Let's get ready to try this stuff out."

Everyone picked up the heavy buckets and placed them at the side of the roof facing the courtyard.

"Now what?" Nicholas asked.

"We need to get them over here so that we can dump this stuff on them." Herb answered.

"How are we going to d…"

"HEY! YEAH! I'M TALKING TO YOU UGLY! UP HERE!" Odd cut Nicholas off and began yelling at the zombies down in the courtyard.

"What the Hell are you doing Odd?" Ulrich questioned.

"Getting their attention; what does it look like?" Odd continued to taunt the zombies, "WHAT ARE YOU, DEAF TOO? GET'CHER ASSES OVER HERE!"

A good portion of the zombies began to turn towards the school and dragged themselves over the walls.

"Hey!" Sissy exclaimed, "Its working!"

"C'mon everyone," Yumi said turning to the rest of the group, "Let's get their attention."

Everyone on the roof began shouting at the masses of undead in the courtyard. A decent fraction of them approached the school and began accumulating in a small, groaning band of ghouls.

"Alright," Jeremy said stopping the shouting, "That'll be enough to administer the test. Let's dump some of this crap."

Nicholas and Odd grabbed a large bucket and proceed to dump the brownish slime on top of the zombies. The creatures hissed in agitation of being doused with the dangerous cocktail, but continued their efforts of clawing at the wall.

"Alright," Odd said placing the empty bucket on the gravel, "Now what?"

"Simple," Herb proudly responded, "We ignite it."

A deafening silence came over the group. All that could be heard was the moaning and hissing of the agitated creatures below.

"With what Herb?!" Sissy shouted.

"Well, um, with…"

"Did anyone bring a lighter?" Yumi asked. No response.

"Some matches? Anything?" Still, no response.

"Way to go Herb!" Sissy shouted, "What's your next plan; build a helicopter out of cardboard?! We could probably fly it out of here if we didn't waste all the gasoline on all of this goddamn napalm!"

Yumi placed her hand on her forehead, trying to suppress her urges to join Sissy in her chewing-out of Herb. Nicholas stepped in and tried to calm her down.

"Don't worry Sissy. We'll find something to set it off."

"Hey," Ulrich said breaking-up the silence between them, "Anyone else hear that?"

"Hear what?!" Sissy shouted at Ulrich.

"Shut up!" he commanded, "There it is again!"

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Beyond the sound of zombies down in the courtyard, the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance.

"The police?!" Yumi said hopefully.

"Ha! Looks like we didn't even need this napalm stuff!" Odd said smiling.

Two large armored cars rolled into the school courtyard being trailed by another, and equally large group of zombies were running at their fullest speed behind them. Some of the more eager ones amongst them were actually grabbing onto the back bumpers of the cars as they were dragged on the gravel road. The two large vehicles came to a stop well inside the courtyard. From each, four heavily armed men in riot gear emerged and formed a firing line in front of the zombies at the side of the school. The same zombies that had just got the napalm dumped on them moments ago. The creatures quickly took notice and began jogging towards the officers.

"Remember, you need to aim for the head men!" One of the officers yelled, "So make sure to line-up your shots!"

"They're going to open fire on them!" Jeremy said.

"No!" Herb yelled to himself, "They're covered in napalm! At that distance, they'll…!"

There wasn't enough time for Herb to warn them. The commander gave the order to open fire as the creatures were only a few feet from them. The bullets ignited the slime. As one zombie exploded violently, so did the ones next to him and so forth. The force of the violent discharge sent many of the zombies in the back of the group flying backwards, as their charred bodies got embedded into the brick wall. Many of the officers were too close and were incinerated in explosion. The kids from the roof stared in disbelief at the halfway backfiring of their plan.

"Well," Odd commented, "At least we know that the napalm works."

"What in the Hell?!" the commander yelled, "What just happened?!"

Only a few of his men heard him. Most of them we either already dead or were completely doused in flames, preparing to die.

"Retreat!" the commander yelled.

The commander and one of the men got into one of the armored cars. The commander took shotgun as the other officer went for the wheel. As he reached out to close the door, a zombie pounced on him and took a chunk out of his arm. Overwhelmed with pain, he slammed down on the accelerator as the car sped-up, slamming into a metal light post. Though the car was still in tact, the two men inside, not wearing their seatbelts, were flung forward, smashing their skulls onto the windshield, killing them instantly. The starving creatures reached into the car, pulled the dead men out of the vehicles, and immediately began devouring their flesh.

The last surviving officer went for the other armored car. He quickly hopped into the vehicle, locked the doors, and shifted the car into reverse. What he failed to do, however, was notice the zombie that made his way into the back of the vehicle during the confusion. He approached the man from behind and sunk his teeth deep into the side of his neck. The officer slammed down on the gas as the armored car fishtailed backwards towards the school.

"What the Hell is he doing?!" Sissy panicked.

The armored car sped up and slammed itself into the front entrance. The force of the blow knocked the officer unconscious and sent the zombie flying through the windshield. The crash sent a shockwave throughout the entire school all the way up to the roof, causing the kids to quake in place. The armored car was perfectly wedged into the hallway so that it completely replaced the doors which were now lying shattered on the ground in the still bloody hallway. The back of the car was placed perfectly so that it still prevented any of the creatures outside from getting into the school.

The kids upstairs quickly armed themselves and made their way down to the first floor. They stood there for a moment surveying the damage, waddling in the pool of blood and broken glass. Some of the water from the basement was beginning to flow upstairs into the lobby, washing away some of the blood.

"Yup," Odd commented, "That stuff definitely works." 


	6. Chapter 4: Prelude for a Booty Whooping

**_CHAPTER 4_  
**_Prelude for a Booty-Whooping  
_Or  
_Shooting the Breeze (Amongst Other Things)_

* * *

"You open it." Nicholas requested.

"Like Hell I will!" Herb replied, "You open it."

"You're both being babies." Sissy proclaimed, breaking-up the both of them.

"Alright then," Nicholas turned to Sissy, "You open it."

"What?" Sissy shot back, "Are you nuts! I'm not going to open that thing!"

The entire group had been arguing for minutes over who would be bestowed the dubious honor of opening the back doors to the armored van that had, only moments ago, crashed through the front entrance of their boarding school; embedding itself perfectly into the threshold where the doors had previously been. Someone had brought up the possibility that there could be some useful munitions inside that they could use, but no one wanted to take the risk of opening the door to, possibly, find another zombie lurking inside.

"Well that's pretty brave of you;" Nicholas replied. He changed the pitch in his voice to a mocking emulation of Sissy's, "Ooh, look at me, my name's Sissy. I insist that everyone puts their life on the line for me but when it comes down to walking the walk, I wuss-out!"

"What in the Hell did you just say to me!" Sissy shouted. She was only moments away from popping one on the side of Nicholas' jaw.

Jeremy leaned towards Ulrich, "We're getting nowhere slowly."

"Tell me about it." Ulrich responded, "Someone's gonna have to open that door."

As Nicholas and Sissy continued with their shouting match, Odd walked over to the back doors of the armored car, placed both hands of the handles and pulled both doors wide open. Sissy and Nicholas, who didn't notice Odd moving towards the car, gasped at the sight and sound of the car doors swinging open, their hearts almost missing a beat.

Nothing happened. The driver was leaned over to his left with his head against the window and some ounces of blood pouring down his right arm onto the gear shift. There was a medium sized hole in the windshield, from where the zombie that was inside the vehicle was ejected from, surrounded by a large spider web crack which ran throughout the entire windshield. In the back of the car was an entire cache of weapons, ammunition, Kevlar, and other assorted tools.

"Score!" Odd shouted smiling. He reached into the car and began pulling out assorted weapons. The first Odd went for was a Desert Eagle he found on the bottom shelf on the right side of the car. He admired it for a second and tucked it into the space between his belt and pants. He then reached for a large FR-F2 sniper rifle he found placed on the same shelf further down inside the car. He then grabbed a few boxes of ammunition for both weapons and turned towards the group.

"This is exactly what we need," Odd said smiling as he climbed out of the vehicle, "Some W.A.D.'s!"

"W.A.D.'s?" Herb asked.

"Yeah! W.A.D.'s!" Odd answered, "Weapons of Ass Destruction!"

Herb eyed the Desert Eagle Odd had tucked into his belt.

"Hey! Nice gun!"

Odd placed his hand over the sidearm, "Hey! Finders-keepers baby! Get your own!"

"I heard that!" Ulrich answered climbing into the truck. Sissy and Yumi followed. Ulrich looked through the gun shelf as Sissy checked the one behind her. She reached for a FAMAS rifle that caught her eye. She held it confidently in both hands and turned to Ulrich, trying to catch his attention. She then noticed Ulrich reaching for a Remington 870 Entry pump-action shotgun. Ulrich, impressed with the weapon, reached for a box of ammunition and closely examined every aspect of the firearm. He then lifted the weapon up and aimed with it. Satisfied, he swung it over his shoulder, letting the weapon hang from his back by the flap.

"Excellent." Ulrich said to himself.

Sissy, in an attempt impress Ulrich, placed the FAMAS on the floor and reached for a Benelli M3T shotgun placed next to where she found the FAMAS. Holding the shotgun in her hands, she turned to Ulrich and tried to get his attention.

"Nice choice, huh?" She asked smiling.

Ulrich turned to her with a serious look on his face and nodded in approval. It was far from the response that she wanted from him, but he did acknowledge her, and that's all she really wanted. Yumi, holding a MP5K turned to Sissy and placed her hands on her discarded FAMAS.

"Hey Sissy, if you're not going to use this weapon can I?"

Sissy, looking a little disappointed over Ulrich's semi-apathetic response, nodded without turning to face Yumi. Yumi took notice of her sad demeanor, but decided not to dwell on it and grabbed the FAMAS. She then scuttled over to the doors and shouted to Jeremy.

"Hey Jeremy, think you can handle this?"

Yumi tossed the MP5K over to Jeremy, which he caught with both hands, followed by a few clips of ammunition.

"I don't know." Jeremy responded, "Let me try."

Jeremy slid the clip into place at the bottom of the weapon and, with it slightly tucked into place, put the clip-side part of the weapon to hisface and banged it against the side of the head,fastening the clip into place. He then reached for a switch located at the front side of the semi-automatic rifle and switched it to automatic.

"Does it look like I can handle it?" Jeremy added sarcastically.

Yumi looked back on the shelf of the car for some ammunition for her rifle. "Wiseass." She muttered under her breath, laughing slightly. Yumi noticed a few clips of ammunition as well as some boxed of ammo on the top of the shelf. She reached for them and climbed out of the car.

Yumi and Ulrich had piled-up many of the weapons they found in the car outside on the damp tile floor. Herb went and reached for an Ingram that had caught his eye in the pile and reached for it. He took a clip lying next to it and slapped it into place. Aiming the weapon at the floor, Herb admired it for a moment.

"Yeah," Herb said smiling, "This is my style."

Herb than reached for the handle on the weapon and accidentally placed his finger on the trigger, discharging four rounds into the floor. The rapid crack of the discharge echoed throughout the halls and caused the entire group to jump. Trying to catch their breath, everyone stared at Herb for a moment. Herb, who was now red in the face, slowly took his hand off on the handle and placed it onto the top of the Ingram. Odd then reached down into the pile and removed two Beretta 92G pistols. Walking over to Herb, Odd stanched the Ingram out of his hands and handed him the two pistols.

"No," Odd exclaimed, "This is more your style."

Herb, disappointingly, took the two pistols from Odd and stared at them for a moment.

"Dang." He said under his breath.

While Nicholas took the two Ingrams and ammunition, Jeremy climbed into the truck and scanned for more tools to use. During his search, he came across some Kevlar vests and a megaphone. Jeremy took the three vests and tossed them outside onto the pile.

"Take these," Jeremy said addressing the whole group, "We can use these too."

"For what?" Yumi said picking up the vest.

"Yeah. What for?" Ulrich added, "It's not like they're going to shoot at us or anything."

"Well I don't know about you, but I would feel more comfortable wearing those things if we ever have to go outside. You saw how those guys disemboweled that on cop earlier." Jeremy answered.

Ulrich and Yumi were quiet for a moment as Jeremy turned back into the car. They stared at each other silently for a moment and then slipped the vests on. Resuming his search, Jeremy then reached for the megaphone. He turned it on and then tested it out. His cracked, amplified voice came through clearly.

"Excellent." He said to himself. He then turned to the group. "We can use this to signal on the roof."

"What about flare guns?" Sissy asked as she fed shells into her shotgun.

"Nope." Jeremy answered, "The radio's been shot to Hell too."

"I'm not complaining." Odd said, loading rounds into a clip for his FR-F2.

"I bet you're not." Ulrich responded smiling.

Jeremy climbed out of the vehicle and gather some of the remaining ammunition for his weapon.

"Alright," he addressed, "I'll head to the roof and signal with the megaphone and check to see if there are any more surviv…"

A load moan came from the front of the vehicle, frightening the group into attention. They turned to see the driver slump out of his seat and begin crawling slowly towards the back of the car. The impact of the crash had somehow damaged a certain part of his spinal cord, preventing brain signals from reaching his legs, but his arms were working just fine as he edged inch by inch towards the kids, hissing and moaning wildly.

"Sweet Jesus!" Nicholas yelled, "He's still alive!"

"No he's not," Herb said correcting Nicholas, "He's dead. Remember how the crash killed him and what not?"

"I KNOW THAT!" Nicholas shouted, "But you know what I mean!"

"Who cares if he's theoretically alive or dead!" Sissy shouted, "Just kill it!"

"Okay." Nicholas answered turning to Sissy.

Everyone stood still for a moment and did nothing as the creature edged closer to the end of the car.

"WELL!" Sissy shouted.

"Well what!" Nicholas responded, "Kill it!"

"ME?"

"Yeah you!" Herb added, "You were the one that implied that we should!"

"I'm not going to kill that thing!" Sissy shot back.

"C'mon Sissy!" Nicholas pleaded, "We know you can do it! Remembered how you cleaned that one's clock earlier back in the closet?"

"Yeah, but that was different!"

"How?" Herb asked.

"Well, um…" Sissy took a moment to patch together a flimsy excuse, "Well, I was scared, and I panicked, and besides I had a bat! I hate guns!"

"Oh," Nicholas said in response, "Well, in that case, can I have yours? That shotgun looks sweet."

By this time, the zombie officer had made it to the back of the car and was prepared to slump out.

"Goddammit!" Yumi hollered, "Some kill it!"

A loud shot rang out as a bullet sped towards the zombie, striking the creature in the forehead. The force of the bullet sent the officer's head back about a foot, blowing out a hole in the back of his head slightly larger than a golf ball. The contents blew out on the floor of the car as the zombie's head went limp and hit the floor with a loud thud. Everyone jumped for a second and then turned to Odd, who was clenching his Desert Eagle with both hands. A cloud of smoke oozed out of the barrel of the gun and evaporated. After a few seconds of standing there in disbelief, Odd lowered his weapon and looked down at it. With his other hand, he caressed the top of it smiling.

"From now on," Odd said speaking to his gun, "Your name will be 'Odd Jr.'."

* * *

Tamiya and Milly had already torn the room apart for a cell phone or food of any sort, but to no avail. The room was littered with discarded clothes and school supplies and the creatures outside had yet to give an inch. They persistency was still strong and it was beginning to take a toll on the wooden door which separated the two girls from the mob outside.

"Anything?" Tamiya asked searching underneath a bed. Milly emerged from a closet she had been scanning through.

"No. Just clothes."

Tamiya curled up into a ball, wrapping her arms around her legs. The creatures outside were only feet away from her. She could hear their hisses clearly and with each pound on the wooden door, a little bit of Tamiya's composure escaped her.

"What are we going to do?" She whined, tucking her head behind her knees. Milly placed her hand on her back.

"We'll get out, I know we will. For all we know, there could be some more people coming to save us."

"You mean just like those last guys!" Tamiya answered raising her voice, "They got wasted! If they can't do it, who can?"

Milly didn't exactly want to agree with Tamiya, but she knew she was right. If eight heavily armed men in armored vehicles couldn't rescue them, who could? The idea of being killed by the zombies began to haunt Milly. She had been trying to avoid it and any other negative thoughts while searching the room, but at this time, it was about all she could think about. They had done just about everything in their power to find an escape from the room, but it was fruitless and the door was going to eventually give way if the zombie's efforts continued.

While sitting in quiet hopelessness, a loud, cracked voice came from outside, almost as if someone was doing a mike test for a concert. The voice was familiar and Milly picked-up on it quickly; It was Jeremy's.

"Hello! Is anyone there! Hello! Is anyone there!"

"Jeremy!" Milly whispered to herself.

Tamiya lifted her head and turned to the window, which was facing the classrooms in which the sound was coming from.

"My name is Jeremy and I'm trapped inside here with six other survivors! We have food and weapons, but we need rescue! If there are any other survivors, you can contact us on Ulrich's cell phone! His number is…"

"Ulrich!" Milly said to herself excitedly. She then turned to Tamiya, "I have his number save on my cell phone!"

"Yeah?" Tamiya replied, "But how are we going to get to it?"

Milly pondered for a second while Jeremy repeated himself outside. She looked around the room for anything she might have missed. The door? Most definitely not. If she could leave through the door, she wouldn't be locked in this room with Tamiya debating the issue of escaping. The window? No, it was bolted down, but for good reason. There were even more of those things outside in the courtyard than there were in the dorms. She then turned to the ceiling to find an air vent large enough for the both of them to fit through.

"How about that air vent?" Milly asked optimistically.

"That might work, but how are we going to reach it?"

Milly pivoted and walked towards a dress placed against the wall. "Help me move this dresser. We can use it to reach the vent."

Tamiya nodded and walked over to the side of the dresser opposite of Milly where she began slowly dragging it towards the center of the room.

The sound of the brass hinges on the door coming loose could be heard as the two girls moved the dresser and Jeremy continued his broadcast.

* * *

In Odd's crosshairs was a girl named Jodi Kirkland. Jodi grew up in the countryside of New Mexico, USA with her mother Sharon, father Alain, and older brother David. The Kirkland's were generally simple folks and didn't make a lot of money, but they make enough to set-up a future education fund for David, who planned to study in Europe after High School. Preferably in Italy. David was intrigued by the history behind the cities of Italy. Ancient Rome, the Vatican, and many other places of staggering beauty.

However, Jodi's loving brother didn't get that opportunity to study in Italy. Two months before graduation, at age 18, he was in a very nasty traffic altercation which ended with a large truck pining him to the wall. The medics didn't want to move the truck in hopes of worsening his situation and, judging by the rest of the damage, they figured that trying to salvage his life would be futile.

Jodi's folks then decided to invest the money that was originally intended for their now deceased son for their daughter, sending her overseas to France for school. Uncomfortable and confused, Jodi had difficulty adjusting to life outside of the States and so far away from her family. Luckily, she was approached my many friends who were sympathetic for her and recommended that Jodi join the cheerleading squad; which she did. Only a year after her brother's demise, Jodi found herself studying in France, making many friends, on the cheerleading squad, and making wonderful grades.

In Odd's crosshairs was a girl named Jodi Kirkland; what was left of her anyway. Hours earlier, she met her maker in science class the tattered remains of one of her classmates sunk his teeth into her arm and turned her into one of them.

Odd squeezed the trigger discharging one round. The round streaked through the sky and struck Jodi in the head, exiting out the back. The back of her skull exploded as pieces of her brain splattered themselves all over the other ghouls standing behind her. Jodi dropped to her knees as her cranial fluid ebbed out of the opening in the back of her head, and then plopped face-first into the dirt ground.

"Stop that Odd!" Yumi shouted as she came up through the stairwell. Not long after Yumi came up to get Jeremy to stop with his calls for help, Odd made his way to the roof to practice with his new sniper rifle.

"I'm just practicing Yumi." Odd said turning to Yumi, "I'm going to need to know how to use this thing if we want to use it to help us out of here."

"I know," Yumi said sneering at Odd, "But I think you've gotten enough practice in for now. There's about a dozen headless zombies down there now. Besides, we need to conserve our ammunition."

"Aw c'mon Yumi," Odd replied smiling, turning back to the courtyard, "Just a few more."

Odd pulled the trigger on his rifle again, letting off another loud crack.

"Huh," Odd said to himself, "So that's what Jim's brain looks like."

"Odd!" Yumi shouted, "That's disgusting! Show some respect for the dead!"

"It's kind of hard to show the dead respect Yumi when they're trying to tear your flesh from your bones and devour it in front of you while you're still screaming in agony."

Yumi clammed-up, scrunching her face angrily. "I don't care Odd! Stop it now and come downstairs."

"Fine. Let me put my things together and I'll be down in a few."

Yumi gave Odd a look of approval and turned to the door. Just as she placed her hand on the door handle, another loud crack of Odd's rifle cracked out through the air. Yumi pivoted back to Odd angrily.

"Odd!"

"Sorry about that Yumi," Odd said turning to Yumi smiling, "But that guy owed me money."

* * *

Panting and sweating buckets, Tamiya and Milly crawled through the vents in the direction of Milly's room. The air was stuffy and it was hard enough to breathe with the both of them still terrified. The both of them managed to get into the vent shafts by stacking together furniture in the previous room. They managed to get through just before the door broke and the barrage of the dead outside poured into the room.

Milly, who took the lead ahead of Tamiya, stopped occasionally above vent grates to look down and survey the damage. She had yet to find her room, but she had saw plenty along the way getting there. This vent, however, she stopped above of, had particularly frightened her. Though she remained unnoticed and a few good feet away from the horror, she was still frozen with fear. The hair on the back of her neck rose and stood on end and a rush of what filled like cold water shot through her veins.

"Milly," Tamiya asked, "What's wrong? Are we there?" Tamiya could tell that something was wrong. Milly had yet to stop for this long above any vent below her. Milly did not answer. Highly concerned, Tamiya extended her small hand and went to shake Milly's ankle. Upon touching her, Milly jumped and let out a light yelp to terror. She turned around to face Tamiya, who was frightened as well.

"Milly," Tamiya continued, "Are you okay?" Milly was quiet for a moment as she articulated her words.

"Tamiya," she answered quietly, "Whatever you do, don't look down through this vent."

"Why's that?"

"Just don't do it!" Milly replied desperately.

"Fine."

Milly scuttled forward and Tamiya followed behind. Making her way over the vent, the feeling of curiosity overtook her. What was it that Tamiya was so desperate to shield her from? What could possibly horrify her to a point to want to protect Milly from it? A corpse? A zombie? Perhaps the room was splattered with blood and guts? Then, the worse ideas began to sink in. What if it was one of her friends? Someone that she loves? Could she stomach risking seeing something that would corrupt her for life?

Finally, she decided to heed Milly's advice and pressed forward, oblivious to what lurked beneath the vent. Eventually, the both of them arrived to the vent above their room. Tamiya stared down through the grate into the vacant.

"We're here," Tamiya said with a hint of relief, "And it looks like the coast is clear."

Tamiya pressed down on the metal grate until it gave way. She then tossed it onto the beds so not to make any noise. Tamiya then slowly wormed her way out the vent and landed as quietly as possible on the carpet floor; Milly followed behind her. As a safety measure, Milly, as soon as setting foot on the floor, reached out and locked the door.

"We've made it!" Tamiya said to Milly, smiling for the first time since the whole incident occurred.

"Yes, we sure did." Milly responded. She almost felt like reaching out and hugging Tamiya in glee over making it as far as they did, but she was still too scared to move more than she felt that she needed to.

"Okay," Tamiya said, getting down to business, "Where's that cellphone?"

Milly remembered instantly. She walked towards her dresser and pulled back the top drawer. Shuffling through her clothes, she finally came across the phone underneath one of her blouses.

"Found it!" Milly said grasping her phone joyfully. She then placed her thumb on the power button as the phone lit up with its typical jingle. Looking at the screen, she noticed that the battery was low.

"Crud." Milly said looking at the low-battery indicator.

"What's wrong?" Tamiya responded sounding as concerned as humanly possible. They've gotten too far to have the phone cop-out on them.

"The battery's low." Milly answered, "I don't know how long it'll hold out."

"Then we're going to have to make it quick then."

Milly nodded and scrolled though the phone book for Ulrich's number. She eventually cam across it and dialed it up.

* * *

"I spy something…" Odd pondered for a moment, "…That begins with the letter 'Z'."

"You're a zombie." Ulrich replied unenthusiastically.

"Damn. I thought I had you on that one." Odd answered sarcastically.

In a period of just a few hours, the tone for the kids still at the classrooms had grown from panic to confusion to overwhelming boredom. Jeremy, Herb, and Nicholas were playing poker from a deck of cards that was confiscated from one of the students earlier in the year and was left locked in Mrs. Hertz office. Yumi and Sissy were hovering over the radio, awaiting any new developments. As for Odd and Ulrich, they just sat near the balcony, overlooking the still smoldering remains of the failed rescue attempt from earlier; Playing games like Charades to pass the time.

"Say Ulrich." Odd said attempting to change the subject.

"You're another zombie Odd." Ulrich answered.

"No, no. Not that." Odd responded, "I just got to thinking. Y'know, about Aelita."

Ulrich looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one, namely Herb, Nicholas, and Sissy, were eavesdropping on their conversation. Seeing that the coast was clear, Ulrich leaned forward and starting taking in a soft voice.

"What about Aelita?"

"Well," Odd continued, lowering his voice, "This is one really nasty situation we've gotten ourselves into."

"Yeah."

"I mean, it's really nasty! The hairiest!"

"Uh-Huh." Ulrich was growing impatient.

"I'm talking some straight-up Rapture, fall of human civilization…"

"Just get on with it Odd!" Ulrich demanded.

"Anyway, do you even think that Aelita will be able to fix all of it?"

Ulrich didn't know how to respond to that. It never occurred to him that this situation couldn't be fixed.

"What do you mean?"

"We've gotten ourselves out of a lot of nasty problems in the past, but this is the worst by a long shot! I mean, look out there! We're all that's left! And this isn't going on just here, it's becoming a global epidemic! Do you really think that just activating a tower is going to make this all better?"

Again, Ulrich didn't know how to process that remark. Was Odd losing faith in Aelita? Was he just concerned? And what if Aelita couldn't fix everything? They haven't communicated with her since before this all began.

Ulrich didn't have time to ponder though. Suddenly, his cellphone went off. The phone's jingle caught everyone's attention. Everyone stared wild-eyed at Ulrich at the sudden disturbance of their solemn quietness. Ulrich reached into his pants pocket and removed the phone.

"Answer it!" Sissy commanded.

Ulrich pressed the button for the phone and placed it to his ear.

"Hello?" He asked softly.

"Ulrich!" the crackling sound of Milly's voice came through the phone she was noticeably relieved, but also relieved. She wanted to cry.

Ulrich placed his hand on the receiver and looked at the rest of the crew. "It's Milly! She's alive."

Everyone was put at ease, except for Sissy, who was disappointed that it wasn't some rescue team, or her father at that. Scowling, she turned her back and walked towards the radio.

"Milly, are you okay?" Ulrich asked.

"Me and Tamiya are here in the dorms. We're locked in our rooms and they're outside! I'm scared!"

Ulrich put his hand on the receiver again. "Tamiya's with her. They're locked in their room at the dorms."

Ulrich lifted his hand and spoke into the phone again. "Are the two of you safe?"

"We're okay, but I'm scared!" Milly was sobbing.

"It's okay Milly." Ulrich responded trying to comfort her, even though everying wasn't really okay. "Just stay there, don't make any noise, and help will come soon."

A banging sound and a scream came though the phone.

"They're here Ulrich! They're at the door!"

The sound of moving furniture could be heard over Milly's voice. Tamiya could then be heard.

"Put down that phone Milly and help me move this dresser."

Crackling noises and the sound of the phone being dropped on the floor could be heard. The moving of furniture continued. Soon afterwards,her phone's batteries died.

"Hello?" Ulrich shouted, "Hello!"

It was no use, the line was dead. The conversation was over. All that was left was Ulrich with his phone and his worries. His panicking put everyone on high alert. Even Sissy looked-up to see what all the commotion was about. Knowing that Milly's phone was dead, Ulrich lowered his phone and pressed the button ending the conversation.

"What the Hell was that!" Yumi commanded.

Ulrich gathered his thoughts. "Milly and Tamiya are alright. They're locked in their room, but those creatures are just outside the door. I don't know how long they have."

Everyone was quiet. Again, the confusion set it accompanied by a feeling of helplessness. No one knew what to do. Suddenly, Ulrich put his phone back into his pocket and walked over to balcony, reaching for his shotgun. His picked it up and began sliding rounds into the chamber.

"What in the Hell do you think you're doing Ulrich?" Yumi commanded approaching Ulrich. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from him.

"Tamiya and Milly are in trouble." Ulrich finished feeding rounds into the weapon and pumped a round, loading the shotgun. "I'm going to save them."


	7. Chapter 5: Stuck Between a Cellphone and...

**Author's Note: On February 20th, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (journalist, novelist, and overall icon of innovative and progressive thinking) died in his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. He was only 67 years old. His works inspired many great minds such as Jimmy Carter and Johnny Depp. He also inspired little people such as yours truly. His extensive collection of phenomenal works includes "Hell's Angels", "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" and the Gonzo Papers Collections. In memory of the man whose accomplishments inspired me to begin writing, I would like to dedicate "Odd of the Dead" in his memory. It may only be a wiseass little story about some kids and their guns, but I think it's the least I can do for a man who I considered a hero. Thank you dedicated reader for your time and enjoy the rest of "Odd of the Dead".**

_**CHAPTER 5  
**Stuck Between a Cellphone and a Hard Place  
_Or  
_Operation: Blast Those Blood-Sucking Freaks Back to Hell!_

* * *

"Are you out of your damn mind! You're going to get yourself killed!"

Sissy had been trying to talk Ulrich out of his rescue attempt for the past few minutes, but his will was unbending. The brief conversation he had with Milly just moments ago triggered some sort of defense mechanism in his subconscious. He was hell-bent on reaching the dormitories and saving those two girls. Neither Sissy nor hoards of bloodthirsty ghouls were going to change his mind. He simply drowned-out Sissy's berating while he tried to conceive a plan.

"Those babies aren't worth it!" Sissy screamed.

Ulrich just continued walking. Even though he was doing his best to ignore Sissy, her loud bickering was hindering on his concentration.

"A whole rescue team couldn't save us! What makes you think you can save two little girls!"

"I have to do it!" Ulrich shouted. Sissy froze into place. "I won't just stand idly by and let those two defenseless girls get torn to pieces!" Ulrich took his shotgun and held it firmly in his hands. "Look at this. I have the power to do something! I have the option of saving both Milly and Tamiya. I'm not some coward like Herb."

"What the Hell!" Herb shouted. He and the rest of the survivors were following Ulrich as well.

Ulrich turned his back and walked away. He then continued. "Besides, those cops were caught off guard. I'm going to make sure I succeed."

Ulrich walked down the hall to the stairs. He wasn't sure how he was going to make it to the dorms, but he figured that he would come up with a decent plan on the way to the exit. He had his shotgun and some shells. To him, that's all that mattered.

"You're one man Ulrich!" Sissy shouted back at him. "That shotgun and all the ammunition in the world isn't going to save you!"

Ulrich stopped in his tracks. Sissy had a point. He was just one man, a boy if anything. He was determined, but not stupid. If he was going to pull this rescue mission off, he was going to need support.

"I'll go." Jeremy said answering the call.

Everyone turned to Jeremy in surprise. Sissy looked only in disgust. She almost talked Ulrich out of his suicide mission and now here comes Jeremy, encouraging him. Ulrich turned around and faced Jeremy. He too, was surprised.

"Jeremy," he asked, "Why?"

Jeremy, with MP5K still in hand, walked past Sissy and approached Ulrich. He put his mouth to his ear and whispered quietly.

"I need to see Aelita." He answered softly, "If I can talk with her, I could find out if this is all XANA's doing."

Ulrich looked at Jeremy and nodded in approval. Sissy walked up and grabbed Jeremy by the arm, shouting at him.

"Got something you'd like to share?" she asked angrily.

Jeremy pondered for a moment, trying to think of an answer.

"I…" Jeremy struggled, "I was just telling Ulrich that I can't just stand by and let Milly and Tamiya die either." He was only telling a half-truth. Sure, Jeremy was worried about the two girls, but above all, it was a good excuse to go and see Aelita. Sissy saw right through it. She knew he was lying. There was something he was keeping them, but she didn't care. If Jeremy wanted to get himself killed, then so be it. It was his funeral.

"I'll go too." Yumi spoke up.

"Me too." Nicholas added.

Sissy glared at Nicholas in disbelief. She couldn't give a rat's ass about Yumi, but Nicholas was her running crew. Didn't she wield some sort of power over them? Was Nicholas actually disagreeing with her? She couldn't process what was happening. Her jaw trembled in anger and disbelief. She had been so used to being in charge, being the alpha, and now she was powerless. No one was listening to her or taking heed to her warnings.

"Get yourselves killed." She muttered under her breath.

"Excuse me?" Yumi asked. She had a pretty good impression of what she said, but she wanted to see if she would speak up and say it to her face. Rather, Sissy said nothing. She walked up to Herb and grabbed him by the arm.

"Herb," she pleaded desperately, "You're not going out there to get yourself killed, are you?"

Herb was terrified. Sissy was borderline psychotic right now. Herb wanted to say 'Hell no'! There was no way he was going to set foot out there. Not for no one, not for no thing. However, Sissy's ecstatic nature had rendered him speechless. Staring into her wild eyes was just like looking into those of another zombie. All Herb could process was a trembling shimmying of his head.

"Good." Sissy said, calming down, "At least you're not a complete retard."

Sissy, still grabbing Herb by the arm dragged him out of the hallway and back to the roof. After they left, Ulrich turned to Odd.

"Odd, can you give us cover fire from the roof?"

"Will do!" Odd replied smiling. He was gleeful over the idea of being able to blast open a few more zombie heads.

"Alright, so how exactly are we going to make it over there?" Nicholas asked.

"If we just walk out there, we'll be seen." Yumi added.

"Perhaps we can go in covertly?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah!" Nicholas commented, "Ninja-style! I like that!"

"But how?" Ulrich asked, "It's not like that truck downstairs came with some Predator-style year-3000 stealth camouflage."

"How about sneaking around the back?" Yumi asked.

"Well," Jeremy answered, "We could exit out the back though this building, but like all the back exits on campus, they're locked from the outside and Milly and Tamiya are not in any position to open the back exits for us. We'll still have to resort to entering the dorms through the front entrance."

The group pondered for a moment, trying to think of a way around the problem.

"Perhaps there's a way we can distract them?" Odd asked.

"Yeah!" Jeremy replied, "We can sneak around the back of this building and Odd can distract them from the roof, buying us enough time to make a dash for the dorms. Once there, we can lock ourselves inside and rescue the girls."

"Sounds like a plan." Ulrich agreed, "Any other ideas or objections?"

Everyone remained silent.

"Then it's official. We'll sneak out through the back." Ulrich turned to Odd, "Odd, when we leave, wait for about five minutes and start distracting them. Then we'll make a dash for it."

"Will do." Odd responded, "We still have that megaphone up on the roof, that may work."

"What if we need to abort the mission?" Yumi asked.

"Yeah," Jeremy added, "It probably won't be a good idea to just prop the door open. Those things could just stroll right back in."

"Then we'll have Herb guard the back door for us." Ulrich answered, "As long as he's going to stay here, we might as well put him to some use."

"Heard that." Odd replied slinging his rifle over his shoulder, "I'll go and tell him." Odd turned around and headed back to the roof. He stopped halfway and turned back to the group and asked another question.

"Hey! While we're still on the topic of me and Herb, are you guys coming back for us, or are you all leaving me here with these two losers?" Odd was clearly concerned about being left with the whiney Herb and commanding Sissy. Going toe to toe with an army of the undead was starting to seem like a cakewalk.

"We'll worry about that after we rescue Milly and Tamiya." Ulrich answered, "Until further notice, you're going to have to hold the fort down here. We'll contact you via cellphone when we find the girls."

"So you are leaving me here with them?" Odd replied with a hint of disgust, "Dude, you're so going to owe more for this one." Odd turned his back and headed back up the stairs to retrieve Herb.

"You have to be honest Ulrich. That is pretty cruel." Jeremy said trying to be funny.

"Yeah," Yumi added, "I couldn't stand being alone with Sissy for more than a few minutes."

"Odd's just going to have to manage." Ulrich responded. He was in no mood for jokes. "Let's make it to the back."

* * *

"They're fools! Straight up fools!"

Sissy had been pacing back and forth furiously for the past few minutes, complaining about Ulrich and his rescue mission. Herb simply stood by and stared at her while she vented her frustration. The sun was setting in the distance, shedding its orange glow on her. Her shadow cast itself on Herb. He knew better than to say anything right now.

He wasn't even really listening to her. Instead, he was thinking of what he could be saying; what he should be saying. Should he comfort her? Perhaps he should agree? Maybe it would be best to encourage her anger? Perhaps he should take side with Ulrich? Sure, it was dangerous, but it was the right thing to do. This is what went through his head the whole time. However, it was a waste of his time and energy. He would never say what he felt. He would never even say what he didn't feel. No talk, no action. It was safer that way.

The iron door cracked open slowly. Sissy stopped in her tracks and Herb turned around to see who it was. Odd emerged from the building, rifle in hand.

"Please tell me that he decided not to go through with it." Sissy asked with a hint of desperation.

"Nope." Odd answered, completely unafraid of anything Sissy would have said in response, "We're still going through with the plan. I just came up here to fetch Herb."

Herb froze in place. 'Fetch me' he thought. What's the meaning of this? What do they want with me? Bait? Oh God no! Say it's not true!

"What in the Hell is that supposed to mean!" Sissy shouted, "He said he wasn't going!"

"And he's not." Odd answered, still immune to Sissy's defensive attitude, "We just need him to guard the door downstairs. That way, if we need to abort the mission, he can open it up for us and let us back in."

Herb relaxed. Good. He didn't have to go outside. What relief. Odd turned to face him and pointed to the door.

"Today Herb." Odd said. Herb complied, walking to the door and down the stairs, letting the iron door shut itself behind him. Odd then turned and faced the courtyard, walking over to the balcony.

"What about you tough guy?" Sissy asked, "You're not going?"

Odd set his rifle up on the balcony and then went for the megaphone.

"I'm going to give them cover fire from the roof."

Sissy looked at the megaphone in Odd's hands while he tested it out.

"What are you going to use?" Sissy asked sarcastically, "Offensive language?"

"Real cute." Odd replied, "I'm going to distract the few zombies I can in the courtyard while the team makes a dash for the dorms. We don't want to have to kill more than we need to." Odd walked over to his rifle and sat down next to it.

"I bet that really disappoints you." Sissy added trying her best to get under Odd's skin, "Being how much of a sadomasochist you are. I bet you were really looking forward to killing your fellow classmates, eh?"

Odd reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a lukewarm juice box he got from the cafeteria. He put a straw into the top of the box and took a sip. "Well, technically, they're already dead, so it's not a big deal when I put a bullet or two in them." Odd then pivoted his head, looking over his shoulder at Sissy, smiling, "But if some blood and guts is what you're looking for, there's always a chance something could go wrong. Want to stick around and watch?"

Sissy glared at Odd is disgust. "I'm not going to watch this disgusting display unfold. You want me, I'll be over here." Sissy turned her back and walked over to the opposite side of the roof, where the back door was. Odd laughed slightly and took another sip from his juice box.

"What a whiner."

* * *

Herb reached the bottom of the stairs, setting foot on the soaked tile floor. The basement was completely flooded and it turned most of the first floor into a wadding pool. In order to keep himself from slipping, falling and breaking his back, he was going to have to watch his step. It would be pretty embarrassing to die of a nasty fall on a wet tile floor in the midst of this zombie nightmare.

Keeping an eye on where his feet were wasn't going to be too big of an issue though. He hung his head low the whole trip down. He was ashamed and he couldn't hide it. This whole day was nothing more than an exhibition of his sheer worthlessness. He constantly angered the group with his whining and insubordination. Now he was being forced into having to help the team with the rescue mission and he was moping about it. It wasn't even a hard job. He was just supposed to guard the door in case they aborted the mission, and judging by how hell bent Ulrich was, that most likely wasn't going to happen.

"So you finally decided to join us, 'eh Herb?" Yumi asked.

Herb was about to say something along the lines of 'Well, it's not like it I wanted to', but then he realized how much of a cosmic ass he would be making out of himself by saying that so he decided to just keep his mouth shut.

"Did Odd fill you in on the plan?" Ulrich asked.

"Yeah, he said to guard the door in case you need to abort the mission."

"Good enough." Jeremy replied, "Let's get this over with."

Yumi pressed herself up against the iron door, peeking outside for zombies. The rest of the group formed behind her. Nicholas turned to get a good look at Herb before he left. Herb was still staring at the floor. His Berettas were still tucked in his belt. He had hardly touched them since Odd gave them to him earlier. Nicholas felt sorry for Herb because he could see how downtrodden he was. Of course, it wasn't him that was putting his life on the line, so it was strange that it was he was feeling sorry for Herb.

"You coming Nick?" Ulrich said breaking Nicholas' meditation.

Nich turned and faced Ulrich who was already out the door with the rest of the team. Nicholas nodded and walked out the door. As the door closed, Nicholas turned and looked at Herb one last time. Just before the door closed on them, he could see Herb lift his head slightly, facing him, scowling. They both knew that they weren't going to abort this mission; they weren't coming back to the classrooms. From here, it was the dormitories or bust.

At the top of the stairs, Sissy stood, watching everyone leave. She was too proud to approach them herself.

* * *

The sound of a hollowed-out juice box came from Odd's straw as he polished-off what little was left of his drink. He then took one good look at the empty box and tossed it off the roof. The paper box bounced off of the head of one of the ghouls below, who only moaned lightly in response. Odd pulled up his left sleeve and checked his watch. 'Five minutes' he thought to himself, 'They should be outside waiting by now'. He stood up from his seat with bullhorn in hand and proceeded to egg on the zombies below.

The courtyard below had become increasingly more populated in the past couple hours. This was due to the many other zombies that made the pilgrimage there from wherever they came from. Some of them seemed slightly familiar. Many of them seemed like the parents of the children from the school. Perhaps they were running on some sort of subconscious that were influencing them to come here. Still, it didn't completely explain why they were there and it did excuse them from ass-whooping that was going to commence shortly.

A good number of the soulless dregs caught on and moved towards the entrance. There were still a number of camps gathered around the wrecks of the rescue vehicles and dead bodies of the police officers. Still, it was enough to buy Ulrich and co. enough space to safely make it to the dorms. They were going to have to take a few of them out first, but by the time the others caught on, the entire crew would be at the dorms and out of harms way.

* * *

There wasn't much left that Tamiya and Milly could do. They had barricaded the door with all of the furniture in the room they had the strength to move. Still, they didn't feel safe though. Maybe it was the sounds or the feeling of helplessness, but things seemed grim for the both of them.

Both girls were seated near the back of the room with their arms tied around their ankles. There was nothing left to do but wait. Wait to be rescued? Wait for the zombies outside to break the door down? Wait to starve to death? Neither of them knew, but waiting was all that was left to do, and it wasn't as easy as it may sound.

Suddenly, Milly stood up and walked towards the dresser. Tamiya stopped her.

"Milly," she asked, "What are doing?" Tamiya had this fear in the back of her mind that somehow Milly had snapped and was going to open their floodgate of furniture in order to end their grief once and for all.

"I have an idea." Milly said. She headed towards the dresser and opened the top drawer. She rummaged through her clothes, looking hastily for whatever it was that she just remembered she had.

"It's here somewhere." She added. Suddenly, she stopped and pulled out an AC adapter from her drawer. "Here it is!"

"What's that?" Tamiya asked.

"It came with my cellphone, but I rarely use it so I had forgotten about it completely!" Milly seemed to be smiling in the first time in a long time. She knelt down and reached for her phone. "With this, we'll be able to get back in touch with Ulrich!"

* * *

Ulrich peered around the corner to check the courtyard. What he saw was a reasonably safe stretch from where they were to the entrance to the dormitory. There was still a small black hill of smoke rising from the smoldering remains of burnt zombie bodies, slightly clouding their path, but Ulrich had planned everything out meticulously beforehand to keep them from walking into a potential death trap. In the distance, Odd's voice could he heard over the megaphone on the roof. He was just about done and it seemed that he had attracted about all the attention that he was going to.

Ulrich stepped out from behind the corner and onto the courtyard. His team followed behind him, still slightly frightened. Yet, they were inspired by Ulrich's determination and they were too far in now to turn back. Once Odd stopped yelling over the megaphone, Ulrich turned to the team, now able to actually hear himself thinking.

"Okay everyone," he started, "Just like we planned: from here, we make a dash for the dorms. Shoot only if you think it's necessary. Once we get in there, me and Yumi will take the front. Nicholas, Jeremy, bring up the rear and make sure you lock those doors once we're inside. After that, we'll clean the place out and find the girls. Does everyone copy that?"

The entire team nodded. Ulrich went over the plan with them earlier and they were familiar enough with it to go forward with it.

"Good. Now let's…"

_...♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪..._

The moment of silence was broken by the sound of music coming from Ulrich's waist. Everyone's blood went cold in complete surprise. Here they were at the edge of executing their rescue plan only to have their rescue botched by Ulrich's carelessness. Yumi took a good stare at Ulrich's phone and then proceeded to look back up at Ulrich.

"Ulrich," she asked, "I know full goddamned well that's not you."

"Uh, Yumi?" Jeremy interrupted.

"What?" Yumi replied glaring at Jeremy.

"We've got problems." Jeremy pointed at the courtyard. Almost every single zombie stopped to stare at the team with wild and crazy eyes. Their cover was definitely blown. Nicholas broke the silence.

"Oh…CRAP!"

* * *

"No one's answering." Milly said with her phone pressed to her ear. It was strange. When she called Ulrich the first time, it didn't take him long to pick up. One would assume after their conversation earlier, that Ulrich would be camping by his phone waiting to see if they would call back. But alas, nothing. It kept on ringing with no response. Milly began fearing the worst. Did Ulrich get killed sometime between their last conversation? Milly didn't want to think about it, Ulrich getting his flesh stripped from him body, screaming in agony. Still, Milly was feeling so pessimistically at the moment, that she knew that it was a possibly and wouldn't put the thought past her.

"I'm sure everything's okay Milly." Tamiya said, reaching out to put her hand on Milly's shoulder.

"I hope so too." Milly responded. She then canceled the call and curled back-up into her fetal position. She was hoping to be able to talk to Ulrich so that she could have a new kind of noise to drown out the sound of the ghouls outside. But alas, she was just going to have to sit here and deal with it. She didn't like it, but what could she do?

"You have to have faith Milly." Tamiya added, "You have to…"

_Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat…_

Tamiya's eyes widened and Milly looked up to stare back at her.

"Did you just hear that?" Tamiya asked.

Both girls got to their feet and looked outside to find four figures in the distance opening fire on an entire plethora of the undead.

"What's that?" Milly asked, "Another rescue team?"

"I don't know." Tamiya responded, "I don't think so. They don't have matching uniforms, and I don't see any vehicles or anything."

Milly squinted and took a good look at the figures below in the courtyard. First she recognized a figure in all black with a machine gun or something. She looked familiar. It soon came apparent to them that it was Yumi.

"Yumi!" Milly shouted ecstatically, "That's Yumi!"

"Is Ulrich with her?"

"I don't know." Milly squinted some more. It was hard to distinguish who was who through the black smoke, but it soon became apparent that the three people with her were indeed Jeremy, Nicholas, and Ulrich.

"He is!" Milly shouted smiling, "Ulrich's with her! What are they doing out there?" Tamiya figured it out right away.

"They've come to save us."

* * *

"No! Up here! Back up here!" Odd shouted back into the megaphone trying to recapture the ghoul's attention, but it was no good. They saw what was clearly an easier meal and they were going to have none of Odd's shenanigans.

"Son of a BITCH!" Odd dropped the megaphone, "It's not working!" Odd knelt down in front of his rifle and took aim. He lined his shots to a female zombie approaching the team from behind. Then gnashed his teeth and squeezed the trigger.

_Klam!_

A shot rang out. The round sped downwards and pierced the ghoul's skull from behind, exiting the front. The wound from behind was relatively clean, with just a little bit of blood exiting from it, but the exit wound in the front was nasty. Part of her face exploded as the bullet exited out through her left eye, popping it like a water balloon on contact. The entire front side of her skull blew out in graphic geyser of blood and brains.

"What the Hell just happened!" Sissy came running up the stairs after hearing the shots from outside. She ran up the edge of the roof and looked out on the battle being waged below.

"Ulrich screwed-up." Odd answered, discharging another round. "His friggin' phone went off and now they're doomed."

Sissy took a good look below at Ulrich, who was clearly having trouble fighting the swarm below. She then turned her back and ran back downstairs.

"Running away are we?" Odd said to himself, gnashing his teeth, "Pathetic."

* * *

They just seemed to keep coming. By this time, the rescue crew would have already have reached the dormitories and have rescued Milly and Tamiya. However, Ulrich's carelessness stalled them and put them into an increasingly dangerous situation. Yumi, Nicholas, and Jeremy seemed to be doing all right with their ammo and Odd was picking them off too fast to keep score. Ulrich, on the other hand didn't exactly prepare for this scenario and it almost seemed as if his recklessness was coming back to bite him in the ass.

Yumi and the rest of the team had already made it near the dormitory entrance, but Ulrich was stalling behind and he was down to his last few shells.

_Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick._

Ulrich was leaving a trail of bodies behind him. The ones who didn't get their heads evaporated at close range were blasted in the chest and were sent back a good few feet. At a distance, one would almost be convinced that Ulrich was doing an excellent job. But he was running out of ammo and at this rate he wasn't going to make it to the dormitories before he was swamped by the blood-sucking freaks.

_Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick._

That was the last one. The shell purged itself from Ulrich's Remington along with his hopes of reaching Milly and Tamiya. Ulrich edged himself against the wall, treading though the pool of cold blood he had drawn around him.

'Damn,' he thought to himself, 'I guess I should have saved that last one for myself.' The creatures dragged themselves, moving in on him. He suddenly began thinking of thoughts of the ghouls tackling him to the ground, ripping the flesh from his bones with their jagged, stained teeth like some vicious jungle creature. A chill ran though Ulrich's veins, his blood running cold. In a moment, he was about to get used to it. He fell to the ground, looking up at the ominous creatures.

_Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick. Klam! Cha-chick._

Three of the zombie's heads surrounding Ulrich suddenly evaporated in a combustion of cranium, blood, and brain tissue. Standing behind them was Sissy. She was holding her M3T like she was born with it. The look in her eyes was sharper and more intimidating than any knife. At her feet rested three smoking shell cases. This was definitely her doing; she had just saved Ulrich, his knight in shining armor.

"Y'know what Ulrich," Sissy said, reaching into her pocket, "You really suck at this." She pulled out a box of shells and tossed it too Ulrich. Fixating his sights on Sissy, the box bounced off of Ulrich's forehead and hit the ground.

Ulrich still couldn't believe it. The same prissy, self-centered girl who had been terrorizing him with her meddling and flirting ever since he arrived at this boarding school was now standing boldly in front of him, weapon in hand, saving him from a rather gruesome and anticlimactic demise.

"Are you just going to sit there and stare at me," Sissy said still looking sharply at Ulrich, "Or are you going to cover my back?"

_Pow! _Odd fired off another round. The bullet whizzed behind Sissy, striking another zombie behind her in the back of its neck, exiting out through the throat, leaving a geyser of dark, stagnant blood. Ulrich reached for the box of shells and fed them into his Remington. Sissy turned her back to him and backed him up while he reloaded. Odd too provided them assistance from the classrooms.

_Cha-chick!_ Ulrich was ready. "Let's move."

Both he and Sissy made a run for it. Jeremy and the others noticed that Ulrich had fallen behind and decided to wait for him near the entrance, given the circumstances that he didn't get the flesh stripped from his bones before then. With Odd giving them backup, both Sissy and Ulrich tore through their adversaries effortlessly, each one falling to the ground in an explosion of fluid and viscera.

Eventually, they both reached the rest of the rescues crew.

"Sorry for the hold-up Yumi." Ulrich gasped. He was still short of breath, a mixture of exhaustion and fear.

"That's fine Ulrich. I'm just glad you're…" Yumi stopped from her firing to notice Sissy, "Why is _she_ here?"

Sissy raised her M3T and pointed it in Yumi's general direction. Yumi's hair stood on end. 'Maybe I should have just kept that to myself.' She though.

"Get down." Sissy had a pretty serious tone in her voice. Yumi quickly ducked. _Klam!_ Sissy shot the creature standing right behind Yumi. It hit the ground, leaving remains of what was the top half of it's cranium on the ground. Terrified, Yumi turned to survey the damage and back to Sissy.

"It's nice to see that you're okay too Yumi."

"Touché" Yumi replied. She reached for her FAMAS and signaled to Nicholas and Jeremy. "Ulrich just showed-up guys! Let's move out!"

Both Jeremy and Nicholas edged backwards towards the entrance as Yumi, Jeremy, and Sissy went for the front door. They quickly nudged both doors open as Jeremy and Nicholas slipped in, then they quickly shut the doors. Ulrich went for the locks as the swarm outside pounded on the glass. The rest of the group headed down the hall, Ulrich right behind him.

"Nice to see you could join us." Jeremy said addressing Sissy.

"I had a feeling that you all weren't going to be able to pull it off without me."

* * *

The pounding still wouldn't stop. The creatures outside continued to hammer away at the door and the noise outside seemed to be further agitating the zombies. Tamiya and Milly weren't going to be able to stand this for much longer and their furniture wasn't going to be able to protect them for much longer either. There were cracks on the top of the door from where the creatures had attempted to break through the wooden door. There were splinters of wood gathering on the floor from where the wood was giving way.

"Ulrich," Milly said to herself quietly, "Please hurry."

Parts of the wood gave way to cold, grey fingers, clawing away from just beyond the door.

* * *

Jeremy and Nicholas quickly locked the doors behind them as the team poured into the dorms. The creatures slammed themselves against the glass doors, slime and blood drooling from their mouths as they smothered the glass outside with their bloody handprints.

As planned, Yumi and Ulrich took point in the front and held off the few zombies that were on the first floor, Sissy giving them back-up. Jeremy approached Ulrich from behind.

"Where did Tamiya and Milly say they were hiding out?" he asked.

"Their room." Ulrich responded. Be discharged another shell into a zombie wallowing out from around the corner, blasting his stomach open as his intestines fell to the floor.

"Where's that?" Yumi asked.

"The second floor," Ulrich answered, "Follow me."

Again, Yumi and Ulrich took point as the rest of the entourage followed them from behind. They met little resistance from the few ghouls they encountered on the way to the second floor. Ulrich and Yumi knocked them down, and everyone following behind finished them off. After climbing the blood-stained stairs, Ulrich turned to his right to see a large number of zombies accumulated outside a single room.

"Am I to safely assume that's their room?" Sissy asked.

Ulrich nodded. "Let's get 'em!"

The team lined themselves up in front of the crowd. Yumi and Ulrich knelt down while the rest of the team stood behind them.

"Open fire!" Ulrich commanded.

With that said, a hailstorm of bullets and buckshot swept itself over the gathering of zombies. Gallons of cold blood poured out all over the floor as heads we exploded, stomachs were blew open, and limbs were shot off. The gruesome display lasted only for a moment. The sheer amount of ammunition that was being dumped upon the ghouls quickly decimated them into a slimy pile of blood and viscera. All that was left was a single zombie with part of her head stuck in a hole in the door. Ulrich, signaling for the shooting to stop, got up, approached the zombie and kicked her out of the hole. She landed in the gruesome pile of dead that the rescue team just recently made out of the competition. She then hissed at Ulrich as he pointed the barrel of his shotgun at her forehead.

"Get away from her you bitch!" Ulrich pulled the trigger as her head exploded like a ripe melon. Pieces of brain and skull splattered all over the wall and on Ulrich himself, only adding to the disgusting mess on the floor.

Ulrich then turned and looked through the hole in the door to see if Tamiya and Milly were there. Judging by the size of the hole, he was worried that one of those things had gotten inside and killed them both. He then looked inside and scanned the room.

"Tamiya? Milly? Are you in here?"

Both girls looked-up from their fetal positions and took a good, long look at Ulrich, staring back at them through the hole in the door. It seemed to good to be true, but it was true. They weren't going insane. Ulrich was standing right there in front of them with shotgun in hand.

"Ulrich!" Milly got to her feet and quickly began moving the furniture in front of the door. Ulrich took the butt of his gun and broke through the door, trying to get to the girls quicker. Eventually, both girls quickly moved the furniture, not even worrying about rearranging them in any neat manner and open the door. Milly dove at Ulrich and hugged him. Ulrich knelt down and returned the gesture. Milly didn't care if he was covered in sweat and blood. She was too happy to see him. She didn't care in the least. Everyone simply stood back and watched the whole touching display unfold. They lowered their weapons in relief that the rescue was fully successful, regardless of the unfortunate setback.

Yumi approached Ulrich and snatched his phone from his waist. "Since you bothered to bring it with you." She said cynically, "We might as well put it to some use."

Ulrich didn't care if Yumi was still mad at his carelessness. He was happy everything was alright and nobody was hurt.

* * *

Odd looked out onto the damage below as he loaded more rounds into his empty clips. Everything seemed to be going wrong. First Ulrich's phone goes off and Sissy interferes. He was worried about everyone at the dorms and was eagerly awaiting news from the rescue team.

Just then, his phone went off. Odd quickly set his clip on the ground and went for the phone. He recognized Ulrich's number on the caller ID and answered hastily.

"What the Hell happened down there!" he shouted just as he turned the phone.

"Ulrich screwed-up." Yumi answered.

"Gee, you think!" Odd responded angrily, not giving Yumi enough time to finish her sentence. She sighed in response.

"Forget it Odd. We're here now and everyone's alright. Go and fetch Herb and tell him that it was a success. We're going to clean-up what's left here and then see if we can find anything to eat."

Odd sighed too. He was relieved to hear that everyone was alright. "Okay. I'll go get him. Be safe over there."

"Gotcha. Yumi out."

The call ended. Odd got up from his seat and put his phone into his pocket. He looked at the setting sun in the distance and sighed in relief.


	8. Chapter 6: A Throat Lozenge, a Nickel, a...

_**Chapter 6**_  
_A Throat Lozenge, a Nickel, and a Wish_  
Or  
_After the Apocalypse, There Will Be Cockroaches and Cher_

* * *

Jeremy placed his foot against the side of the zombie's face as it lied on the floor. He incapacitated it only moments ago when he blew its knees out, but it still continued to claw at the floor, its legs barely hanging on to it's shattered joints. Holding the creature's head still, Jeremy aimed his weapon at it's temple and pulled the trigger. The hissing stopped instantly with the crack of the MP5K. A bullet pierced the skull causing a small splatter of fluid, some of which got on Jeremy's glasses.

"That should be the last of them." Jeremy said to himself as he removed his glasses and tried to fling the blood off, "Good thing too, I'm starting to get sick and tired of constantly having to clean my glasses."

"Just toss him on the pile with the rest of them." Ulrich added.

For the past few minutes since Milly & Tamiya's rescue, the team had devoted the rest of their time to cleaning out the few zombies that were left in the dorms. They had used some sheets and bedspreads found in other rooms to help them carry the dead bodies to the roof to be dropped off. The current blanket was absolutely soaked in blood. They had already gone through a good number of these homemade stretchers, and hopefully this would be their last one.

Yumi grabbed the corpse's ankles and Jeremy the head. They proceeded to toss it on top of the small pile they've already made. After that, Yumi and Jeremy grabbed the corners of the bedspread as Ulrich and Nicholas grabbed the others. They then proceeded to haul the pile of dead up the stairs to the roof. Pints of blood spilled out of the sides as they struggled to get them up the stairs without having the bodies spill out on the floor so they had to pick them up again.

Eventually, they made it to the roof where the rest of the girls were. Both Tamiya and Milly looked away as the four moved the bedspread towards the side. Sissy stared at them for a moment and then got to her feet. She walked over to the group as they prepared to dump the last of the bodies onto the pile they had already accumulated below, near the back of the building.

"Ashes to ashes…" Yumi said as they all lifted the bedspread.

"…and dust to dust." Ulrich added as he and Nicholas lifted their end. The bodies easily slid off the blood-soaked bedspread as they fell onto the pile. The sounds of bodies smacking together could be heard below as the dead were added to the mountain of corpses. The four of them then tossed the bedspread over the top. They watched as it floated down and covered the mass grave. All five of the team then looked over at the bloody mound of dead.

"Shouldn't somebody say some words?" Yumi said.

"Like what?" Nicholas asked.

"I don't know! Something!"

Everyone stayed quiet for a moment as they contemplated what to say.

"Perhaps Sissy would like to say the eulogy?" Jeremy implied.

"Me!" Sissy asked, "Why me?"

"Well, it's not like you helped us carry these bodies upstairs. The very least you can do is say some words." Jeremy answered.

"Hey! If it weren't for me, we'd probably be tossing Ulrich's body off of this roof right now!"

"Please Sissy," Ulrich said putting his hand on Sissy shoulder, "Just a few words so we can go back downstairs."

"Fine." Sissy answered. She wouldn't have answered to anyone else other than Ulrich, and since he was being so thoughtful, she felt inclined to comply. "Everyone, bow your heads."

Everyone stood over the roof and closed their eyes as they bowed their heads. Sissy took a deep breath and began.

"I didn't know many of the people below as my fellow classmates," Sissy began, "But I did know them as zombies."

Everyone else open their eyes slightly and stared at Sissy, who continued.

"Blood-sucking, flesh-eating ghouls who butchered each other and almost got us killed trying to make it here to save these little girls. But…"

Ulrich put his hand on Sissy's shoulder again, interrupting her.

"Uh, that's enough Sissy."

"Really? I mean, I barely started!"

"It's…It's fine." Yumi said lying.

Everyone looked over the roof again at the bodies below.

"Does anyone else want to say something?" Ulrich asked.

"I don't know." Nicholas answered, "I don't exactly feel up for saying anyth…"

Sissy interrupted as she leaned over the roof and vomited. The sensation had been bubbling over in her throat for a while, but she had been trying to be modest and not do anything, but the smell; that putrid smell. The sight of dismembered bodies, shattered skulls, and internal organs had gotten to her. The pale fluid poured over on top of the roof and onto the bodies below. Ulrich moved in and patted Sissy on the back as she finished.

"Looks like she wasn't finished." Jeremy added.

"I'm sorry." Sissy said finishing, "I didn't want anyone to see that."

"It's okay Sissy." Ulrich said, "Stay here. I'll go and get you some water."

Ulrich hurried back downstairs as Sissy sat down, pressing her back against the side of the roof. The acidic taste of regurgitation still lingered in her mouth as she proceeded to take some deep breaths. Yumi stared at Ulrich as he headed downstairs. She didn't like the way he was acting around Sissy as of late. Ever since she saved his ass in the courtyard earlier, he's been letter her slide on a lot of things. It wasn't stuff like letting her sit by on the roof while everyone else cleaned-up below. It was the little things. The way he looked at her. The way he put his hand on her shoulder. The way he was so willing to help her out. She didn't like it one bit.

"Say Yumi." Jeremy asked, breaking Yumi's concentration.

"Huh? What?"

"You blanked-out on us there for a moment. You still with us?"

"What? Oh yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking about how we need to take the girls back downstairs."

"Good plan. We'll take care of it. After we get a bite to eat, we can think of a plan out of here and maybe we can clean up the blood downstairs too."

"Sure. Go on. I'll be right behind you."

Jeremy and Nicholas went and escorted Tamiya & Milly downstairs. Yumi then glared at Sissy who was still trying to catch her breath. There was an orange glow that blanketed the roof and if you stared at the sky just right, you could see the stars beginning to come into focus.

* * *

"Sissy looks like Hell." Nicholas commented as he and Jeremy escorted the girls down the hall.

"Yeah. Yumi looks pretty tore-up too." Jeremy replied.

"Yumi's been acting pretty aggressive ever since we've arrived. You think Sissy has something to do with it?"

"Most likely. The two of them never got along."

"Yeah. I'm sure that her saving Ulrich really burner her…"

"Shhh!" Jeremy interrupted, "Do you hear that?"

A clawing sound came from one of the door just a few feet down the hall. Both Tamiya and Milly quickly took position behind both Nicholas and Jeremy as they got out their weapons.

"I thought we got them all." Nicholas whispered.

"Shhh…" Jeremy replied, "I want to catch it off guard."

Both boys slowly approached the door as the clawing resumed. Cold sweat broke on their brow as they inched further and further to the noise. Just as Jeremy put his hand on the doorknob, a new sound came from the room; an animal whimper.

"Hey," Jeremy said to himself, "That's no zombie. That's…"

Jeremy turned the knob and opened the door. From behind it, Kiwi, Odd's butt-ugly dog emerged.

"Kiwi!" Jeremy exclaimed.

Both Tamiya and Milly emerged from behind the two boys. They crowded around Kiwi, laughing and playing. Both boys lowered their weapons.

"Well," Nicholas added, "I think we handled that pretty well."

"What's all the commotion?" Yumi asked, walking down the stairs.

"Look what we found." Jeremy answered.

Yumi took a look down the hall to see Kiwi playing with the girls.

"Well now," Yumi said, smiling for the first time since she arrived at the dorms, "Look who decided to join us."

Kiwi noticed Yumi and barked. Yumi approached the dog and scratched him behind his ears.

"Looks like the girls aren't the only ones who made it over here."

"Is that who I think it is?" Ulrich said smiling as he descended the staircase. Sissy was standing behind him holding a glass of water.

"Indeed." Yumi replied, continuing to pet Kiwi.

Ulrich and Sissy approached the dog and took a good look at him.

"Strange." Ulrich said, "Kiwi's completely unharmed. You would think those things would have killed him."

"Perhaps the zombies only go after humans?" Jeremy replied.

"That could be it." Yumi said getting to her feet.

"Hey! I got an idea!" Ulrich added, "If those creatures outside completely ignore Kiwi, we could use him to get the rest of those supplies out in the other truck!"

"Hey! That's a pretty good plan!" Sissy added, "The rescue mission cost a lot of ammo. If we're to get out of here, we're going to need more munitions."

Yumi glared at Sissy. No one asked for her two cents.

"Indeed." Ulrich said addressing Sissy. He then turned to the rest of the team. "Any objections?"

Everyone remained quiet.

"Then it's settled." Ulrich said smiling. "Let's contact Odd. We can have Kiwi deliver some supplies to them as well."

"I'll call them." Yumi said under her breath.

"Alright then." Ulrich said, "Let's get to work."

"Later." Nicholas said, "I'm famished!"

"Yeah." Jeremy said, "I'm sure Kiwi's hungry too."

Kiwi barked at Jeremy.

"What'd I tell ya?" Jeremy added.

"Alright then." Ulrich replied laughing, "First food, then munitions."

Everyone began heading towards the lobby where they accumulated a good collection of junk foods to eat. Yumi grabbed Ulrich by the arm as he walked past him.

"Ulrich," she asked, "Can I speak to you?"

Sissy looked at Ulrich, then at Yumi. Yumi glared back at Sissy.

"In private?" Yumi added.

Sissy glared back at Yumi. Instead of saying anything, she turned her back and headed downstairs to the lobby with the rest of the team. Ulrich watched Sissy leave and then turned to Yumi.

"What'cha need Yumi?" Ulrich asked casually.

"I don't exactly like the way you're acting around her." Yumi shot back.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't 'Excuse me' Ulrich. You know damn well what I'm talking about."

Ulrich pondered for a moment. "Sissy?" he asked.

"No Ulrich. The Queen of France." Yumi replied sarcastically.

"What's your damn problem Yumi?"

"Sissy's a slacker and you're letting it slide Ulrich!"

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"Don't take me for a sucker. When we had to clean out the dorms, you just let her stay up on the roof instead of having her pull her weight like the rest of us!"

"Cleaning out the dorms is a four-person job Yumi and we all volunteered."

"I don't care!" Yumi answered, raising her voice, "I also don't like how you've been pampering her either!"

"Excuse me!" Ulrich was caught off-guard by this comment.

"Patting her on the back. Fixing her a glass of water. You gonna rustle her up some grub now too?"

"You are taking this whole situation way too seriously Yumi!" Ulrich said. He was practically shouting by now, "I thought you stopped me to talk about Aileta or something, not you're jealous delusions!"

Yumi gasped and let go of Ulrich's sleeve. She took the compliment personally. Ulrich just stared back at her as he straightened his sleeve.

"When you're done moping over petty things," Ulrich added, "You can call Odd and join us downstairs."

"Who got recalled and made you leader of this outfit?" Yumi responded.

"No one Yumi." Ulrich was no longer shouting at Yumi, but he was still notably upset at her, "I'm just taking initiative. Everyone here's just going with the flow; all I'm trying to do is get everyone up to the task of doing the work that needs to be done around here. We need everyone's input if we're going to get out of this situation alive."

"So," Yumi added, speaking softly, "You're saying I don't have the initiative?"

"That's not what I meant Yumi," Ulrich answered, "You just need to keep your cool. Whatever issues you have with me and Sissy, you need to toss it off the roof with the rest of those ghouls. I can't have you loosing your cool over something so small, none of us can."

Ulrich stopped for a moment to notice Yumi staring at the floor. He took a deep sigh and turned around, heading towards the stairs.

"She saved you're life too Yumi. Remember that. Me and her having nothing going on, I just want her know that I appreciate her helping us out there. You don't have to like her, but we're going to have to live with her."

Ulrich was finished. He didn't have anything left to say. He just walked on as Yumi stood there, phone in hand. Ulrich made it to the bottom of the stairs to find Sissy holding her glass of water.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"Personal stuff." Ulrich answered, still visibly upset.

"Ah." Sissy was trying to move in on Ulrich. She put her arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer to her. "Not…too personal I hope?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Ulrich moved forward. Sissy's arm slumped back down to her waist. "Let's just go and get some food."

Ulrich stormed-off to the lobby, leaving Sissy dumbfounded at the foot of the stairs.

"Gee." Sissy said talking to herself, "I guess it was."

* * *

"Hey!" Herb exclaimed, "I know that girl!"

Both boys were on the roof, overlooking the zombie chaos that resumed below. The both of them were tired of card games by now, especially since Odd kept beating Herb. Instead, they spent time surveying the damage in the courtyard.

"Which girl?" Odd asked, looking through his sniper scope.

"Her, right there." Herb said, pointing out a blonde girl in the courtyard, "Heidi Klinger."

A shot rang out as Odd squeezed the trigger on his rifle. A bullet pierced Heidi Klinger's zombie skull, exiting out the back. Streams of stagnant blood poured out both the entrance and exit wounds as she fell to her knees and slumped to the side.

"Who?" Odd asked, "Her?"

"Odd, you jackass! I was going to ask her to the dance!"

"Heidi Klinger?" Odd asked, looking up from his rifle, "Dude, she's, like, way out of your league!" Odd then stopped himself. "Well, now wait a minute. Being that she's now a grey-skinned, maggot-infested corpse, you probably stand a better chance…but I wouldn't wager money on it."

"How could you be so insensitive Odd! I liked her! I was hoping me and her would make it to the dance. Well, either her or Jeanne."

Another shot rang out from Odd's rifle, piercing zombie Jeanne's neck. Her corpse hit the ground with a thud as a geyser of blood shot out from her throat.

"That Jeanne?" Odd asked, trying to suppress his laughter.

"The Hell!" Herb shouted.

"Whoops, sorry Herb." Odd said laughing, "Butterfingers."

"Odd, how'd you like it if I shot at some girl that you liked?"

"Herb," Odd answered, looking up from his rifle, "The girls that I liked no longer live amongst us. Take a good look out there Herb. Heidi and Jeanne are dead and it's not because I busted a rather impromptu cap in their asses. They died way back when those other creeps got to them. You see Herb, that's what you don't realize. Those things down there, they aren't the classmates that you used to hang out with, they're just lifeless doppelgangers using the bodies of our classmates to weaken your mind into not doing what you have to do, and that's fight back. Heidi: dead. Jeanne: Dead. Taelia: Dead. That girl that Ulrich went out for a while just to make Yumi and Sissy jealous…"

"Emily?" Herb answered.

"That's the one." Odd responded, "She's dead too. Once you've finally realize that, then maybe you can get your candy-ass with the program. We're all out here trying to save each other's butts, and you want to stand around here moping like those things outside have a personality!"

"So what you're trying to say is that we don't have to worry about respecting the dead, even though they're all that remains of the people we once knew?"

"That's right." Odd answered.

"Very well then." Herb answered. He then pulled out his Beretta and aimed it out in the crowd. Carefully lining-up his shot, he squeezed the trigger. The bullet pierced Samantha, Odd's old squeeze, in the eye and exited in the back. Her body twitched a little as she fell to one knee, blood pouring out the back of her skull where the bullet exited. Eventually, she hit the ground, slumping into a pool of her own fluid.

"What the Hell!" Odd shouted.

"What's wrong Odd?" Herb said smiling as he pushed his glasses back on this face, "Touched a nerve did I?"

"Dude! That was different! You just liked Heidi and Jeanne. I actually was Sam's sugar daddy!"

"Like Hell!" Herb shouted, "You're no sugar daddy!"

"Dude! I'm like, the royal duke of pimpology! You can't hold a flame to my game!"

"Please!" Herb responded, "Royal duke of pimpology or not, it still doesn't cover for your hypocrisy!"

"Hypocrisy!" Odd shouted. By this time, he was up on his feet. "Now hold on just one moment. I…"

Odd turned to look at Sam's body. He then took into account the distance between where she was from the roof and the precision of Herb's shot.

"Wait a minute Herb!" Odd said changing the subject, "That was a damn good shot!"

"Don't change the subject on me!" Herb responded, "I'm not done talking about…really?"

"Hell yeah!" Odd said smiling, "That was phenomenal! Try it again." Odd surveyed the courtyard and picked another zombie, slightly farther from the roof than Sam was. "Okay, hit him."

Herb lifted his gun up and lined his shot. He then squeezed the trigger. The bullet sped towards the zombie's skull, piercing it from behind. The front of his face blew out, incinerating his nose. A stream of dark blood poured out of the exit wound as the ghoul bit the dust.

"Sweet zombie Christ!" Odd exclaimed laughing, "You're a prodigy Herb! An original Annie Oakley!"

"Really?" Herb said smiling.

"Hell yes!" Odd said, "Y'know, that could have been you saving Ulrich's ass earlier!" Odd then pondered for a moment and then corrected himself. "Then again, maybe it would have been better if you stayed here. If you went, Sissy would be here in your place and between the two of you, I think you're the better of two evils."

Odd then walked over to tray full of juice boxes he found in the cafeteria earlier. He reached in for two and tossed one to Herb, who caught it with both hands. Odd placed the straw in the top and took a sip.

"So," Herb said placing the straw into his juice box, "You're not mad about the whole Sam thing?"

"Well," Odd said putting down his juice box, "It still kinda burns my ass, but you're right. I guess I still need to let it go too."

Odd's cellphone rang. He moved over to it and answered it.

"Hello," Odd answered, "Halliburton human relations department…just kidding."

"Odd, This is Yumi."

"Oh! 'Sup Yumi?"

"We found Kiwi." Yumi sounded somber. Odd was worried.

"Is he okay?"

"That's the thing Odd, he's unscratched."

Odd sighed in relief. He then put his hand to the receiver. "They found my dog Kiwi." Odd said addressing Herb, "He's okay!"

Herb smiled back. He didn't really care all that much, but he didn't want to seem rude, especially after Odd complimented him on his marksmanship.

"Well that's great!" Odd continued, "So what's the dealio then?"

"We believe that the zombies are ignoring Kiwi because he's not human."

"So?" Odd answered. He didn't like where this was going.

"We came up with a plan to have Kiwi go out into the courtyard and fetch the rest of the munitions from the other truck. We could use more ammo and what not; especially if we're going to have you guys make it over here."

"No!" Odd shouted, "There's no way I'm going to let you do that with my Kiwi!"

Yumi was silent for a moment. "Too bad." She answered.

"What!"

"We're going to send him out with a bag. He'll grab some ammo for you and Herb and drop it off at your place. After that, he'll get the stuff we need over here."

"No! No! No! I won't allow it."

"That's all Odd." Yumi wasn't in any mood to put up with Odd, "I'll call you later."

"Yumi!" Odd shouted, "Don't you hang up this phone!"

The call ended. All that was left was static.

"She hung up!" Odd yelled, looking at his phone.

"What was that all about?" Herb asked, finishing his juice box.

"Yumi's going to send Kiwi out into the courtyard to grab some ammo for us." Odd walked over to his juice box, visibly upset.

"Won't he get killed?" Herb asked.

"Well," Odd added picking up his juice box, "Yumi said the zombies are ignoring him because he's a dog."

"Well then, sounds like a good plan. Go Kiwi, y'know."

"Yeah, but he's my dog!"

Odd took a sip of his juice box and stared at the dorms.

"Another thing." Odd added, "Yumi sounded positively blue. Something seems to be bothering her, and it's not just me."

* * *

Yumi had the steel door in the back propped open. To her left was the large pile of dead zombies and soiled bedspreads. In front of her were Kiwi and an empty duffel bag. Kiwi stared at Yumi as she explained to Kiwi the plan.

"Okay Kiwi, here's the deal. I need you to take this duffel bag and take it the wrecked armored car outside. Once there, grab some boxes of ammo and take it to where the classrooms are. You know where that is, right?"

Kiwi barked in response.

"I'll take that as a yes. After that, come back here with the rest of the ammo and we'll have a treat waiting for you. Okay?"

Kiwi barked again.

"Good boy!" Yumi said, reaching out to pet Kiwi, "Now go and get that ammo."

Yumi walked back inside and shut the metal door behind her. Kiwi looked at the duffel bag, grabbed the handle by his teeth, and proceeded to drag it out to the courtyard. The dog walked out onto the bloody battlefield clenching the bag and proceeded to drag it to the wrecked car at the other side of the courtyard. The ghouls paid no attention to the dog during his venture. Even when a few bumped into him or tripped over the bag, they remained oblivious of his existence, almost as if he was transparent to them.

Kiwi finally made it to the back of the armored truck. Its back doors had been swung open as a result of the impact from hitting the light post earlier. Near the front of the car were the two bodies of the rescue team that attempted to rescue the team earlier. The ghouls had long finished with them, leaving nothing but cold bodies with their ribs removed, leaving their empty chest cavities exposed to the sky. Their lungs, heart, stomach and other organs had already been hastily devoured.

Kiwi then pounced for the door. He slipped and fell the first time, but with his second attempt, he successfully clawed his way into the car. Boxes of ammunition lay scattered all over the floor. They fell off of the shelves when the car originally crashed along with a few firearms. The dog went straight for the ammunition, ignoring the empty firearms. He wasn't instructed to pick them up and they would have been too bulky and heavy to carry anyway. Kiwi grabbed the boxes in his teeth and tossed them out the back onto the empty duffel bag. After only a few minutes, the dog had accumulated a plethora of bullets, shells, and clips of all assorted sizes.

After cleaning-out the truck, Kiwi jumped out the car and put the remaining boxes of ammunition he tossed out the vehicle into the bag. He then grabbed the bag by the arm strap and proceeded to drag it towards the classrooms.

* * *

Both Herb and Odd were seated next to the back door waiting for Kiwi's arrival. They snacked on potato chips and drank juice boxes while they listened to the radio. All of the music stations had were on the EBS or were nothing both dead air. One particular station gave back nothing but the sounds of moaning zombies. It chilled them both to think of what it must have sounded like to hear the DJ panicking, locked in his or her booth when the creatures broke through and butchered them mercilessly.

The radio was fixed on a news radio station, one of the few left that hadn't already switched to the EBS.

"This just in," the male announcer spoke through the static, "We have received reports from multiple sources that many of the undead assailants have been spotted in Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. The United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and various other nations have recently announced a number of emergency embargos and sanctions prohibiting travel for a number of central European nations, including France. The White House released this statement today…"

"The President believes that it is in the best interests of the American people and other nations around the world to keep this epidemic isolated." An American voice said coming through the radio, "We are encouraging other nations around the world to establish similar sanctions until we have controlled the incident. We are currently prohibiting any flights from central Europe indefinitely and any flights from other nations will have to go through and extensive screening process before passengers can enter the United States."

The radio then switched back to the radio announcer. "When asked whether they believed that the sanctions would hurt international relations between the United States and Europe, the White House responded by saying that they believed that the many European nations currently suffering from the epidemic would understand the safety measures that the United States have taken to protect it's people. The U.N. also announced recently that they plan to send peacekeeping troops into Europe to combat the epidemic. French Prime Minster Jean-Pierre Raffarin has been unable comment since his disappearance following the compromising of the Hotel Matignon."

"Sounds like they caught the Prime Minister." Odd said polishing-off his bag of chips.

"Horrible, isn't it?" Herb replied softly, staring at the floor.

"Oh, don't get so bent out of shape about it." Odd replied smiling as he dusted-off his hands, "They'll get a new one."

Odd then laughed as he reached inside of a plastic bag next to him for a candy bar. Herb looked up at Odd.

"All right Odd," Herb said standing up, "You're taking this way too well. Either you've completely lost your mind or you're hiding something from the rest of us."

"What the crap are you talking about Herb?" Odd replied opening a candy bar, "You need to chill."

"I don't need to chill!" Herb shot back mockingly, "You and the rest of your friends have always been so secretive and what not. There's something you're not telling the rest of us."

This caught Odd off guard. Herb was right to be suspicious. Odd and the rest of the team had always hid the secret of Lyoko and XANA from everyone else. They genuinely did a very good job at it, but folks like Herb were always too nosey for their own good and with the current state of affairs, Herb had become increasingly paranoid; he was on to Odd.

"You're delusional." Odd said playing dumb.

"Don't tell me I'm delusional!" Herb yelled. A scratching sound could be heard outside the door.

"Are you kidding me?" Odd answered, cocking an eyebrow, "Listen to yourself, you sound like you're losing your mind!"

Herb clenched his fists, feeling embarrassed. The clawing outside had started to become barking.

"Well," Herb said trying to change the subject, "I have to answer that door!"

Herb marched to the door as Odd bit into the candy bar. "You do that." Odd replied.

Herb pushed open the door and Kiwi rushed inside to greet Odd. He hoped into his lap, knocking the candy bar out of his hands.

"Kiwi!" Odd said, petting the dog, "You're safe!"

Herb stared indifferently at the two for a moment and looked outside the door to find a duffel bag full of ammo. He looked around for zombies and pulled the heavy bag inside, closing the door behind him.

"What'cha get for us?" Odd said addressing his dog.

Herb rummaged through the bag, removing numerous sidearm clips and boxes of bullets.

"A little eager to get that ammo, aren't we?" Odd said commenting on Herb.

Herb said nothing.

"I don't see why." Odd added as he scratched the top of Kiwi's head, "It's not like you plan on going anywhere soon."

Herb flinched in anger, but still said nothing.

"Whatever."

Odd reached into his pocket and removed his cellphone. He then dialed Yumi's number and waited patiently for her to pick up. After a couple of rings, she answered.

"What is it Odd?" she said as soon as she answered the call. She wasn't as upset as earlier, but she didn't seem to be in a joking mood at that either.

"Kiwi just showed up, and he's bearing Christmas gifts."

"Good." Yumi replied, "Once you're done, send him back this way. We're working on a plan to get you and Herb over here with the rest of the crew."

"Sheesh, so soon?" Odd answered disappointedly, "He just got here."

"The two of you can have all the time to visit you want when you get here. Until then, it's work before play."

"Whatever." Odd said under his breath.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, have you been listening to the radio?" Odd replied trying to cover for himself.

"No. What about it?"

"There's zombies in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. Every single nation on the planet that's has access to a cheap-o radio now knows about what has happened here."

"You're kidding!" Yumi replied, legitimately startled.

"No joke. Britain, America, and every other superpower on the globe are spooked! They also suspect that the Prime Minister is dead! All of France is in complete anarchy, well, what's left living of it anyway."

Yumi sighed in emotional distress.

"I also here that they plan on sending U.N. peacekeepers here to clean up the mess."

"The U.N.'s not going to be able to do a goddamned thing." Yumi replied angrily, cutting Odd off. "Their 'peacekeepers' are just a bunch of candy-asses. I give 'em less than a week before they realize that they can't handle the job and then just nuke the place to Hell."

"Sweet Jesus!" Odd replied shocked, "That's not a very optimistically way of looking at things. What's gotten into you?"

Yumi sighed again. "I'm sorry Odd. I'm just really upset right now."

"Not about the zombies I bet?"

No reply.

"Is it Ulrich? Or maybe it's Sissy?"

Again, no reply.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not really." Yumi replied, "Just wrap everything up and send Kiwi this way. Afterwards, we'll notify you about rescue plans."

"Sure thing Yumi. Talk to later."

Odd then closed his phone and put it back in his pocket.

"What was that all about?" Herb said, pulling out the last of their ammo.

"It's Yumi. She's not feeling very well."

"None of us are."

"Indeed."

Odd picked Kiwi back up and looked at him smiling.

"Alright Kiwi, we're going to have to turn you loose. Take the rest of the ammo to Yumi and we'll meet you over there shortly."

Kiwi barked as Odd set him on the floor. Kiwi went and grabbed the duffel bag with the rest of the ammo and headed for the door. Odd got up from his seat and opened the door for Kiwi. The dog then proceeded to drag the ammunition out the door as Odd waved good-bye to his pet. He then let go as the steel door slowly shut itself.

"Well, looks like it's just you and me again until Yumi calls back." Odd said addressing Herb.

"Splendid." Herb replied sarcastically.

"Splendid indeed."

Odd sat back down in his seat and picked up the candy bar he dropped on the floor. He noticed how soggy it had gotten as a result from floating in the water and discarded it in disgust.

"Well," Odd added, "At least I still have the radio to keep me company."

"This just came in…" the radio announcer said over the rustling of papers. There was a brief silence before he continued. "I've just been informed that we are going off the air in search of safer haven. Afterwards, we will be switching to the Emergency Broadcast System. I would like to take this time to apologize for any inconvenience this may cause for any of our listeners…if we do have any listeners left."

There were a few more seconds of silence. Afterwards, a voice recording came through.

"This is the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test." After that, a loud, continuous beep.

"Splendid." Odd commented.


	9. Chapter 7: Welcome to the Rapture

_**CHAPTER 7  
**Welcome to the Rapture_  
Or  
_How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Weapons of Mass Destruction

* * *

_

Jeremy quickly took his seat in front of his computer and turned on the monitor. The machine clicked on as the bright illumination of the computer gradually returned. Jeremy pivoted his head and looked backwards to see that his door was closed all the way. He wasn't exactly thrilled over the prospect of being interrupted in the middle of his conversation, especially now that the entire school's population had been gutted, save for only a handful of students. Having someone like Sissy simply barge in and get a good look at what was going on behind the scenes would only worsen the situation.

Feeling secured, Jeremy turned to the monitor and reestablished communication with Aelita. The image of her panicked face flickered on screen and immediately starting trying to explain things to Jeremy.

"Jeremy!" she said panicking, "Where have you been! I've been waiting for you for hours! There's been a disturbance and…"

"I know Aelita," Jeremy interrupted, "There's been a XANA attack. It's the reason I haven't got in touch with you."

"What? What has happened over there?"

"Something bad has gone down and I'm certain that its XANA's doing."

"What happened Jeremy?" Aelita was visibly scared, "Tell me what's going on."

"I'm not sure how it started, but somehow, XANA turned a few of the students here at the school into zombies and now they're…"

"Zombies?" Aelita asked. Jeremy looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face before remembering of the culture block between him and her. Aelita didn't have things like George Romero films or Resident Evil games where she came from so the whole concept of a "zombie" was an alien one to her.

"Oh yeah, you don't know what a zombie is." Jeremy said correcting himself, "Well, how do I explain it. A zombie is kind of like a dead person."

"Dead!" Aelita gasped, "Are you saying that XANA killed someone in your world!"

"Kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really." Jeremy replied. Aelita's expression couldn't have looked more puzzled.

"You're not making a lot of sense Jeremy."

"Well, let me finish explaining the whole thing to you." Jeremy sighed for a moment and resumed with his explanation, "When someone dies in our world, certain things happen to them. Their hear stops beating, they stop breathing, their muscles don't move. Et cetera. Most importantly, they now longer move or talk or think; at least that's how a normal dead person acts in our world."

"Okay." Aelita said nodding.

"But a zombie is when something entirely different happens. They still don't breathe or have a pulse, but they walk around and what now."

"So it's kind of like being part-dead and part-alive?" Aelita asked.

"Sort of yes. We also call them "the undead"."

"Very interesting." Aelita added, "But I don't see how they can be such a severe problem."

"I'm getting to that," Jeremy added, "You see, a zombie doesn't think like normal people. They don't have memories of things like family, friends, or even themselves. They only know one thing, that they have to kill and eat the flesh of the living."

"Oh God, that's horrible!" Aelita said with a clear element of disgust on her physiognomy.

"Yes, very! A zombie can't be reasoned with. They're like wild animals. Also, the people they kill eventually turn into zombies themselves over time."

"Like a virus or disease of some sort?"  
"Precisely!"

"Is there any way to stop them or turn them back?" Aelita asked.

"When you're dead, you're dead. There's no turning back from something like that. As for stopping them, there's only one method that has proven effective time-and-time again." Jeremy was quiet for a second. He didn't know how to deliver this information to Aelita without horrifying her any further than he already had, so he gave it to her straight, "You have to kill them…again."

"Oh God." Aelita put her hand over her mouth. Her face was stricken with horror and disgust. "Jeremy, have you been…killing these…zombies?"

"Yes, I have." Jeremy answered, "When they attacked, me, Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were trapped in the school. In order to get over here to the dormitories, we had to blast our way through the courtyard where the most of them are gathered."

"How did you do it? Kill them I mean." As soon as Aelita said it, she knew that she wish she didn't. She wasn't comfortable with hearing the answers to this horrific story, but her curiosity overwhelmed her.

"With this." Jeremy answered, lifting his MP5K to where Aelita could see it.

"Is that…a gun?" Aelita asked.

"That's right." Jeremy answered, "A rescue team was killed trying to get us out of the schools, but they died trying, leaving their weapons lying around. So we took them and used them to defend ourselves."

"Must you shoot them to stop them?" Aelita asked, almost pleading.

"'Fraid so. Zombies are difficult to kill. If you shoot a normal human being, it would stop them in their tracks, but it would only slow down a zombie for a few seconds. In order to stop one, you have to shoot it in the head."

Aelita put her hand to her mouth and looked away. She was visibly ill.

"Please, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Jeremy lowered his gun. He felt rather embarrassed over the fact that he just upset Aelita.

"Aelita…I'm, um, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go into all the graphic details. I just thought it was important that you knew that we were having a very rough time over here."

Aelita nodded, not looking at Jeremy.

"I…I understand."

The both of them were quiet. Jeremy knew that there was a lot to be said, but he just couldn't bring himself to talk about them.

"Aelita, look. Everyone else needs me right now, and Odd is still trapped in the classrooms. We need to get him over here."

"I see." Aelita looked up to face Jeremy, "Get back in touch with me when you're ready then."

"Aelita…" but Jeremy didn't get a chance to finish. Before he could say anything, Aelita dissolved into the background and the communication feed was stopped. Jeremy sighed and shut off his monitor.

"Yeah," he added softly, "See you when I get back."

* * *

Sissy placed her cellphone back into her pocket as she reached for a can of soda lying on the floor next to her. She had resumed her attempt to reach her missing father now that she was in the dormitories, but she never got through to him. As hell-bent as she was to get in touch him, even now she felt a sensation of futility in her actions. Regardless, she refused to believe that her father was dead, that he was somewhere outside, waddling around, waiting for the next human being to cross his path so he may tear them to ribbons. No, that just wasn't possible.

On the other side of the room, Ulrich, Jeremy, and Yumi sat in a small huddle, sketching out their plan to safely get Odd and Herb over to the dorms. Ulrich and Jeremy did most of the talking and Yumi sat by, mostly nodding in agreement. She was still upset with Ulrich and Sissy. Even if she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that she was, indeed, overreacting, she couldn't help but to resent Sissy and her being here. Yumi was a possessive girl, that's just the way she was.

Sitting outside the circle was Nicholas; listening, but not really contributing. He sat cross-legged on the floor petting Kiwi who rested next to him, eating raw dog food straight from the tin can (his reward for bringing back the ammunition). Just behind them, Milly and Tamiya sat, trying to fall into the conversation. They've seen and heard enough about zombies and killing for one day and they weren't exactly comfortable with the idea of getting more familiar with it than they needed to.

"Okay," Ulrich said softly, "So before we make anything official, we should dial up Odd and ask him about the napalm, right?"

Jeremy nodded in compliance. Ulrich turned to Yumi, whose sights were fixated on Sissy. Her gaze was full of resentment and fury. Ulrich put his shoulder on Yumi and shook her a little bit.

"Yumi, you still with us?"

"I so wish she would stop doing that?" Yumi said gritting her teeth, eyes still fixed on Sissy.

"Stop doing what?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh Hell." Ulrich said to himself, "Yumi, don't…"

It was too late. Yumi jumped to her feet and began berating Sissy.

"Dammit Sissy, how many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that!"

Sissy returned a glare of confusion and anger.

"Excuse me?" she answered sourly.

By now, everyone had stopped what they were doing and were paying close attention to Yumi and Sissy. Even Kiwi stopped to get a good look at the two.

"You heard me!" Yumi continued, "I'm sick and tired of you wasting your time and energy trying to contact your irrefutably dead father!"

Nicholas gasped with shock. Sissy's eyes filled with blind fury as she rose to her feet, dropping her phone.

"What did you just say about my father!" Sissy asked, desperately trying to hold herself back from punching Yumi.

"Are you deaf! Your father is most likely out there stumbling around aimlessly snacking on the corpses of those police officers outside and all you're worried about is trying to reach out and touch face with him!"

Sissy, armed with a look that could kill, stormed over to Yumi. Nicholas got to his feet, as did the other boys.

"Bitch!" Sissy added, "I'll reach out and touch your face!"

Sissy tightly grabbed the top collar of Yumi's shirt in a move to try and punch her, but before any of them could make their next move, Ulrich jumped in between them and shoved them apart. Jeremy grabbed Yumi and pulled her kicking body away from the fray. Nicholas jumped in and did the same.

"That's enough!" Jeremy shouted, "Jeremy, take Yumi out to the hall. I need to talk to her. Sissy, stay here, and don't follow. I don't need the two of you going at each other's throats again."

Jeremy nodded and escorted the fuming Yumi towards the door. Nicholas freed Sissy, who stormed off into the corner and picked up her cell phone.

"You better talk some sense into her Ulrich!" Sissy shouted.

"Don't you dare try and tell Ulrich what to do Sissy!" Yumi replied, "You're not his mother!"

"I said enough!" Ulrich shouted.

Everyone when quiet. Tamiya and Milly were against the wall, holding their hears so to try and not hear all the fighting. Even Kiwi was flinching, whining fearfully. Jeremy escorted the quiet Yumi out into the hall while Sissy took her seat, breathing heavily. Ulrich followed Jeremy out into the hall.

Yumi was against the wall, hissing angrily about Sissy to Jeremy, who fruitlessly tried to console her. Yumi saw Ulrich approaching and turned to him.

"Ulrich!" she pleaded, "You saw her! She grabbed me!"

"I said that was enough!" Ulrich shouted.

Yumi flinched and stood upright, looking at Ulrich in horror.

"Yumi, you don't have to like Sissy. I don't require you to even have to be in the same room with her, but for God's sake, if you are, could you at least muster up the composure to try and not start a fight with her? Things are ugly enough as they are right now and I don't need the few people we have here going at each other's throats while we still have people to save over in the classrooms!"

"Ulrich, but…" Yumi's voice was but a desperate whisper.

"I said enough!" Ulrich interrupted, "I can't have you picking fights over things as insignificant as what Sissy does with her cell phone. I have my phone right here, we can use it for whatever we want. Let Sissy worry about Sissy problems!"

Yumi's look of disbelief turned to one of disgust and fury.

"What are you always taking her side!" she shouted.

"Keep your voice down!" Ulrich commanded, "I'm not taking anyone's side here. I just want…"

"Yes you ARE!" Yumi stormed off and stomped down the hall, away from Ulrich and Jeremy.

"Yumi!" Ulrich shouted, "Come back here!"

No reply.

"Where are you going?" Jeremy asked.

"To the roof," Yumi sobbed, "I need to get some fresh air."

"Fresh air?" Jeremy asked, "Man, last time I checked, the air up there wasn't so fresh."

"Stop taking everything so literal." Ulrich said softly, "Get Odd on the phone, ask him about the napalm. Come get me when you're done."

Ulrich stormed back into the room where Sissy and the rest were. Jeremy watched him and stood in a moment of silence before he picked up his phone and dialed Odd. After a couple of rings, Odd answered.

"Hey Odd, this is Jeremy…yeah, I'm good. You?...Good, look. We think we have a plan to help you guys out of there, but I need to know something first. Do you still have any of that napalm left?...You do? How much?" there was a momentary pause, "Good, excellent. That should be more than enough. All right, here's the plan…"

* * *

Both Odd and Herb poured the goopy napalm over the side of the house and onto the ghouls below. They hissed and moaned angrily as the slimy substance fell on top of them. The two boys only laughed.

"Jerks won't know what hit 'em." Odd said, dropping the empty bucket.

"Do we have all the supplies we need." Herb asked.

"Yeah. I packed some food and I've got all the ammo Kiwi sent over. You?"

"Yeah, I'm straight."

Odd removed the Desert Eagle he had tucked between his belt and pants and loaded a fresh clip into it.

"This is going to be flippin' sweet." He said to himself as he pulled back the chamber on the weapon and tucked it back into his pants, "Take the supplies downstairs Herb, I'll be down shortly."

Herb nodded and took two backpacks downstairs with him. Odd took out his phone and phoned Jeremy.

"Hey Jeremy…Yeah, what's up!...Hey, we're finished over here on this side…Oh, you saw…All right then, look, we're heading downstairs. We're ready whenever you are...Okay, and you're going to fire off a warning shot first right?...Good. Okay, is that everything, because I can't think of anything else…Okay then, I'll see you when I get there. Later."

Odd closed the phone and headed downstairs, his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.

* * *

"Are you girls ready?" Nicholas asked Tamiya and Milly. Both girls were on the roof, overlooking the infested courtyard.

A whole plethora of zombies staggered hungrily over to the dormitories, many dripping with napalm. Hissing wildly, they cumulated around the front entrance and began slamming their slimy, bloodstained fists against the walls, windows and doors. Ulrich, Jeremy, Yumi and Sissy, who were waiting eagerly in the lobby of the dormitories with guns in hand, looked on as the former shells of their classmates banged on the glass doors, starving to get inside.

"All right, that should be it." Nicholas said, aiming his Ingram at the sky, "You two get inside and lock yourselves in one of the rooms. Don't come out until we come and get you."

The two nodded and hurried back downstairs. Nicholas took aim into the sky and fired off a few good rounds. Afterwards, he hurried downstairs to join Ulrich and the rest.

This was Odd and Herb's cue. They had already left the classrooms via the back entrance and were now waiting out of sight. Hearing the warning shot, they both removed their weapons and prepared for battle.

"Herb." Odd said catching him before they both ran for the courtyard.

"What?"

"Don't wuss out on us. All of our lives are riding on this."

Herb looked at Odd, feeling a bit insulted, but only nodded in compliance. The two of them darted out from behind the building and onto the side of the courtyard opposite of the dormitories. The only thing that stood between them now was a massive wall of the living dead.

"Remember Herb!" Odd called, "Don't shoot the ones with the napalm on them until I say so."

Herb nodded, but he seemed distant, too scared to know what to do. Odd took aim with the Desert Eagle and killed a nearby zombie. The gunshot startled the zombies near the dormitories. The quickly turned around and began slowly staggering their way over to the two boys.

Odd fired off a few more shots, taking down more and more zombies and he went. Herb, however, did nothing. He stood there, Berettas in hand, too terrified to do anything.

"Herb!" Odd called to him, "Don't just stand there fool! Shoot!"

But Herb couldn't move. His mind was yelling to his body to act, to take aim and pull the trigger, but nothing happened. All he could see in front of him was a tsunami of flesh-eating ghouls, staring wildly back at him.

"What is Herb doing?" Ulrich asked himself from inside the dormitories, "Why isn't he shooting?"

"Maybe his gun's all jammed up?" Jeremy said.

"Or maybe he's being a coward." Sissy added sourly.

Yumi bit her lip, trying her best not to say anything bitter. It wasn't that she wanted to stick up for Herb, but because she was tired of listening to Sissy's sass. Alas, she said nothing. All she could do was stand there in the lobby, watching the masses of zombies slowly drag themselves away from the doors.

By now, Odd had already emptied a clip and was loading a new one into the chamber. Herb continued to do nothing.

"Herb!" Odd called, "Dammit Herb, shoot! You're gonna get us all killed."

Herb's face clenched. He tightened the grip he had around his gun. Like blood rushing into a numb limb, Herb could feel his nerve returning to him. Maybe it was just fear triggering his defense mechanisms, or maybe it was the adrenaline surging through his blood; He didn't just know. However, there was one thing he knew for certain, above all things, he didn't want to die. Not like this. Not with a dozen hands reaching into his screaming body, pulling him open and feasting upon his guts. Not when he had the power to do something about it.

POW!

The Beretta in Herb's hand cracked loudly. A single round sped across the courtyard, striking a zombie 30 yards away in the eye socket, punching out the back of his skull, and piercing the throat of another ghoul behind him. A phenomenal shot.

Herb was back in business. He was purged of fear and cowardice. All that was left now was instinct and the fighting spirit he needed to survive.

"Thank you!" Odd said cynically, taking aim with his reloaded Desert Eagle.

Herb continued his onslaught headshot by headshot. The chamber pulled back on his weapon and he placed the smoking weapon into his mouth, clenching the top of the chamber between his teeth. With his left hand, he removed a second Beretta and fired off more shots into the masses while he reloaded the empty Beretta with his other hand. Herb was something out of an action movie.

"Herb!" Odd shouted, firing off another shot, "Remember, don't hit the stained ones! Wait until they get a bit closer! I'll signal you!"

Herb heard Odd, but gave no reply. He was too busy dropping zombie ass to say anything. The Beretta on the left emptied and Herb switched hands, repeating his firing/reloading system: shoot with one hand, reload with the other. His shooting dazzled everyone.

"Sweet Hell!" Ulrich said, still locked in the dormitories, "Is that Herb picking off all those zombies!"

"I think it is!" Nicholas added, "Where did he learn to shoot like that."

Yumi had to stop herself from saying "Certainly not from Sissy". She took one deep breath, and said nothing. She only clenched her automatic rifle tighter.

The zombies were now about halfway between the dormitories and where Odd and Herb were. Everything was in position. Phase 2 was ready to commence.

"That's it!" Odd shouted, "Okay Herb, drop 'em!"

And drop 'em Herb did. He took aim at one of the slimy ghouls in the middle of the fray and opened fire. The bullet struck the ghoul, causing it to ignite, which ignited the others around it, starting a chain reaction of napalm-induced explosions which only took about a second to carry out. The whole section of the masses quickly turned into a raging fireball of screaming ghouls and dismembered bodies.

Limbs and guts splattered against the glass doors of the dormitories where the rest of the team were perched at. They flinched in terror and disgust for a moment before Ulrich decided to speak up.

"That's it!" Ulrich shouted, "That's our cue! Everyone, fall out!"

Yumi reached out and unlocked the doors. All five of them (Yumi, Ulrich, Jeremy, Sissy and Nicholas) spilled out onto the courtyard. Yumi, with a set of keys she found in the Nurse's Office, dashed for a row of cars near the side of the building while Jeremy gave her cover fire. Ulrich, Sissy and Nicholas spread out onto the courtyard, trying to clear a path for Odd and Herb to run through.

Odd and Herb ran forward, dropping zombies along the way while they hurriedly made their way towards the dormitories. Though the napalm took out a good chunk of the zombies in the courtyard, there were still a staggering number of them wandering around so it was important that they didn't stay for long.

With Jeremy giving her cover fire, Yumi climbed into a large SUV parked not too far from the school's entrance. Yumi revved the vehicle up and unlocked the doors. Still blasting at the corpses, Jeremy slid open the side door and climbed inside. Yumi then backed out while Jeremy continued to shoot at the ghouls from the open side door like some helicopter gunman. Somewhere deep in Jeremy's mind, there was a record playing "The Ride of the Valkyries".

As tough as the zombies were, Ulrich and Nicholas seemed to be making headway with the clearing. With each and every headshot, they were a step closer to a casualty-free rescue mission. Sissy, of course, was having no problem picking off the living dead. Her shotgun thundered loudly, incinerating skulls and limbs all around her. She seemed to be doing perfectly fine until she turned around and got an eyesore of her greatest fear.

It was her father. Part of his hand was missing, his hair was stained, and one of his eyes was crimson red due to a busted vessel, but it was him. The resemblance was unmistakable. Sissy lowered her weapon and stared at the ghoulish shell of her former father as he staggered hungrily towards her. She stared at him with gloom and despair in her eyes. Everything Yumi said was true. Her father was dead, another statistic, cannon fodder. It seemed as if Sissy was going to do nothing. She looked as if the only ambition she had left for her was to stand still and embrace death at the hands of her father as he extended his arms forward towards her and opened his mouth.

POW!

The head of Sissy's father evaporated. All that was left now was his lower jaw and a geyser of stagnant blood. She stumbled forwards a few steps, and fell to the ground, blood running from his massive wound. Sissy only stood there looking, clenching her smoking shotgun.

In the distance, Odd and Herb were dashing madly towards the entrance to the dormitories as Nicholas stayed behind them, providing cover fire. Yumi and Jeremy took the SUV around the back of the school, still busting shots into the crowd. Sissy could hear them, but she did nothing. She only stood there, sadly eyeballing her father's corpse.

A hand reached out and shook Sissy's shoulder. She jumped back and before she could take aim, she caught a glimpse of Ulrich's face.

"Come on Sissy!" he shouted, "We're finished here! Fall back!"

Ulrich didn't wait for Sissy to comply. He simply grabbed her by the sleeve of her shirt and pulled her along towards the entrance to the school. Sissy looked back to see her father still-bleeding corpse being trampled over by hungry ghouls.

Ulrich and Sissy were the last to make it to the dormitories. Ulrich pushed Sissy inside hastily and quickly turned around to lock the doors. As he did, Sissy perched herself against the side of the doors and stared outside in the direction of her father's body. It was now out of sight, its image obscured by the army of still mobilized dead, but she looked onward anyway.

Yumi and Jeremy entered the room panting. They were followed by Nicholas who went to the back to open the back door for them. Odd and Herb were sitting on the ground, trying to catch their breath, waiting for the adrenaline to work its way out of their system.

"Is everyone okay?" Ulrich asked.

"We're fine." Jeremy answered through short gasps, "We've got the escape car in the back and with a full tank of gas."

"Excellent." Ulrich commented, "How about you two?"

"I'm okay." Herb said panting. Odd gave Ulrich a mild thumbs-up.

"Well then," Ulrich said smiling, "It looks like everyone's okay! Plus, we've got a rescue vehicle! The mission was a success!"

Everyone, except for Sissy, cheered happily. Odd put his hand on Herb's shoulder and shook it.

"Damn Herb!" Odd commented smiling, "Your bustin' was tight!"

Everyone laugh. Odd even got a snicker out of Herb, who was now breathing at a normal pace.

"No kiddin' Herb!" Nicholas added, "Where'd you learn to shoot like that."

Herb shrugged sheepishly, "I don't know. I guess I'm just a natural."

"My ass you are!" Jeremy said smiling, "What's your secret?"

Kiwi came darting out from behind the corner of the lobby. He rushed over to Odd and jumped onto his lap, barking happily.

"Kiwi!" Odd shouted, "It looks like we're all one big happy family again."

"Speaking of which," Nicholas interrupted, "I'm going to go find Tamiya and Milly."

"Good idea." Ulrich added, "Later, we can start loading supplies into the vehicle for our big escape."

Everyone, except for Sissy, gave out another round of applause. Ulrich turned around to find Sissy, still staring out onto the courtyard.

"Sissy," Ulrich asked, "You okay? You're pretty quiet back there."

Sissy turned around, her eyes drowning in tears and face scrunched into a grimace. He dropped her weapon onto the floor, which landed with a loud clacking noise, and stormed off silently.

"Sissy?" Ulrich shouted to her, but to no avail. Sissy just kept running until she was out of sight, "I wonder what that was all about?"

"Forget it." Yumi said coldly, "Let Sissy worry about Sissy problems."


	10. Chapter 8: Who Died and Made You King

**_CHAPTER 8_**

_Who Died and Made You King of the Zombies?_  
Or  
_Things Getting Worse_

_**1**_

_**

* * *

**_

"I still don't see why you don't just go ahead and do it." Nicholas asked.

It was getting late in the evening and the group (minus Sissy) were gathered around in the lobby, enjoying a supper consisting mostly of junk food, and talking amongst themselves. As usual, Yumi, Ulrich, Jeremy, and Odd were gathered together in their own little clique while Tamiya and Milly slept in the corner at the far end of the room. As for Nicholas and Herb, they were talking about Herb and his hidden affections for Sissy.

"No way!" Herb answered, "There's no way I'm going to talk to Sissy right now! She's pissed! If I go and talk to her now, she'll tear my face off."

Nicholas nodded slightly in agreement, "I can see your point. Suddenly, facing a hoard of zombies doesn't seem so bad."

The both of them looked around the room. They still had power and they were thankful for that, but it was a bit of a moot point. They were still trapped inside of the dormitories with the one rescue vehicle outside, and they were starting to run low on ammunition. In the background, a CD player was going through some songs Odd had on CD somewhere. They originally tried browsing through the radio, but all they got was dead air and EBS signals. Nicholas turned back to Herb.

"You have to consider one thing though," he added, "You may not get another chance."

"What do you mean?" Herb questioned.

"Well, look around man. It's the end of the world! Many of us have lost our families, at least the vast majority of our families." Nicholas looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on him and then lowered his voice to Herb, "What if we don't make it another day and you die knowing that you never really told her how you felt?"

Herb was rather taken back by this. He didn't want to think about being ripped to pieces by those things outside, not after his rather dynamic battle outside just a couple hours earlier. He gave Nicholas a slightly unsettled look and then turned his head and sighed.

"Well then," Herb responded glumly, "If I die, then I'll be too dead to care whether or not I told her."

"And if you die, you'll be too dead to care whether or not she totally rejected you." Nicholas said in an unusually upbeat voice, "You've got nothing to lose!"

Herb looked around the room and his eyes fell on Yumi and Ulrich, who were talking together in their group.

"You really think I can pull it off?" Herb said quietly.

"Man, if you can do what you did out there earlier, you can talk to a girl dude. Don't be such a wuss."

"I'm not being a wuss!" Herb hissed, "I'm just…I'm…"

Nicholas cocked an eyebrow at Herb, awaiting his pathetic excuse.

"It's just that…I wouldn't know how to say it, y'know?"

Nicholas hummed and nodded his head.

"Well, you gotta act real smooth like."

"Smooth?"

"Yeah, like double-0 seven or something."

"Nice advice," Herb said sarcastically, "But in case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly Casa Nova over here."

"You see? There's your problem!"

"What is?"

"You've got the wrong attitude! You anticipate your own defeat before you even try. I mean, look, be honest with me, out there, before you and Odd went at it with the zombies, you were afraid that you were going to die, weren't ya?"

Herb was taken back, and then nodded. He wasn't exactly keen on admitting his own fear, but he wasn't going to lie about it either.

"Uh, yeah, but…"

"But nothing! You were afraid, but regardless of that, you went ahead and did it anyway, and look what happened! Not did you just survive unscathed, but you were busting shots off like Chow Yun-Fat!"

"Yeah, but…that was totally different. It was a life-or-death situation!"

"Well that's good! You could go through a life or death situation, you can survive telling Sissy how you really feel."

"But I…"

"Enough of your excuses man." Nicholas interrupted, "Here's how it's going to work, you go to your room and make it look all nice and what not. Y'know, put on some tunes, get into some nice clothes, the works. While you do that, I'll go and tell Sissy that you want to talk to her in private in your room. She'll show up, you'll be ready, everything'll click together!"

Nicholas got up to his feet and started walking away. Herb quickly grabbed his pants leg.

"Nicholas!" he said, almost shouting.

"What is it now man?" Nicholas answered sounding rather annoyed. Herb stared at him for a second while he gathered his thoughts.

"Wait thirty minutes, then tell Sissy. I'll need some extra time to prepare."

Nicholas gave Herb a rather fiendish looking smile.

"I gotcha." Nicholas said winking, "Thirty minutes."

The both of the got to their feet and left the room. For a second there, Jeremy could have sworn that he heard Nicholas say "all right" in a Quagmire voice.

"What's got Nicholas in a good mood?" Odd questioned as the two of them passed by.

"Who cares?" Yumi pouted, still sore over the whole Sissy-Ulrich thing.

Ulrich shot Yumi a glare. Yumi caught it in the corner of her eye, but didn't even bother to return it. Instead, she stared off into space, poorly attempting to ignore him,

"Doesn't matter." Jeremy answered, pushing his glasses up to the top of his nose, "Now that they're gone we can get back to business."

"What did Aelita have to say about all this?" Odd said, turning back to Jeremy.

"A tower has been activated. Knowing this, I would definitely say that this is all XANA's doing."

"Are you entirely sure?" Odd replied cynically, "You sure that there's not just some swarm of mutant bees flying around somewhere outside and that this whole zombie apocalypse thing is just a nasty coincidence?"

"Hurr." Jeremy muttered, "Real cure Odd."

"I aim to please baby."

"Anyway, now that we've confirmed its XANA, it's imperative that we escape from here and make it to the factory. Only then will we be able to…dammit, are you two paying attention?"

When Jeremy interjected, Ulrich was still staring grimly at Yumi, who continued to stare off into space. Both snapped to attention.

"Huh? What?" Ulrich asked, giving Jeremy his trademark "Who? Me?" face that he gave the teachers time and time again when called upon to answer a question.

"I wasn't listening." Yumi said outright and unapologetically.

Jeremy sighed deeply and rubbed the corners of his eyes. He could just feel the pressure behind his eyes from the headache the both of them were giving him. Odd's humor wasn't exactly releasing the pressure either.

"Could the two of you please give me your attention for, like, five minutes so that I can go over the details of how we're going to get out of here? This is a life-or-death situation that we have on our hands here in case you haven't noticed."

"Tell that to her." Ulrich said gesturing to Yumi, "She's been acting like this ever since we got here."

"Why do you always have to treat me like I'm the problem?", Yumi shot back "I've been doing nothing but supporting you since this whole mess started. When you proposed to come here, I volunteered to go right from the start, unlike Sissy who decided to wait to the last moment to tag along!"

"Why do you always have to bring Sissy into this?"

"Why do I have to bring Sissy into this? Don't ask me, you're the one who seems to be enjoying her company so much."

"Whether or not I enjoy her company is none of your business!"

"You know what Ulrich? I wish you'd treat me with a little more respect than that! I saved your life out there!"

"Correction, Sissy saved my life."

Yumi rose to her feet, her hands tightly clenched into fists. She gave Ulrich a stone cold stare as he rose to a stand, delivering her a lethal glare of his own. Odd clenched in horror and anticipation. It was pretty ugly to see two of his best friends come this close to exchanging fists, but knowing that they both were skilled martial artists, he figured that at least it would be a cool fight to watch. Jeremy, on the other hand, was more so pissed than he was shocked. He rose to his feet and moved in between the two.

"That'll be quite enough!" Jeremy told them both. He turned to see Tamiya and Milly in the corner, waking from their slumber, "The girls are awake now. Nice work. We can't talk business with them awake, let alone you two acting the way you are. Take a break and meet back here when you feel like you've cooled-off. Come Hell or high water, we're going to get this bit of business out of the way tonight."

Yumi gave off a deep sigh that sounded more like grunt, "I'm going to the roof to get some fresh air."

Yumi swiftly turned her back on Ulrich as she stormed her way out of the room. Odd looked around the room as he surveyed the damage.

"Well!" he said pleasantly, "I'm going to get a snack. Sniff you jerks later."

Odd followed Yumi out of the room (but not too closely). Then, it was just Jeremy and Ulrich.

"I don't know what's between you too, but it has got to stop. It may look like a personal affair to you, but it could be the one thing that comes between us and survival. If you need me, I'll be in my room."

Jeremy turned his back on Ulrich and left the room, leaving nothing but the trailing sound of his footsteps echoing through the halls. Ulrich took a deep sigh and unclenched his fists.

"Ulrich," Milly asked sheepishly, "Are you and Yumi fighting?"

Ulrich turned to see the girls in the corner staring back at him with their eyes filled with confusion and fear. Ulrich walked over to them and patted Milly on the head.

"It's okay." He told them softly, "Everything's going to be okay. You can go back to sleep now."

Milly smiled at Ulrich, who returned the gesture. She then rested her head against the floor and Tamiya followed suit.

He didn't want to tell them the truth. It wasn't so much to upset them, but also so he didn't have to upset himself.

_**2**_

_**

* * *

**_

"This had better be good." Sissy thought to herself as she stormed through the dormitory halls. It was only a few minutes ago when Nicholas let himself into her room and told her that Herb wanted to talk to her in his room. When she asked why he couldn't come to her room, all she got out of Nicholas was…

"It's a surprise." He replied smirking.

Whatever that was about, Sissy didn't like it. After having to resort to killing her zombie father, Sissy was less than enthusiastic about having to talk to anyone, especially that wormy dork Herb.

Regardless, Nicholas said it was important so Sissy decided not to keep Herb waiting. If it was important enough to interrupt her in her moment of grief, then it must have been serious. Otherwise, she would have to throw him off the top of the building and let the zombies have their way with him. Either way, she was getting something out of it.

Sissy stopped in front of the door to Herb's room and took a deep breath. On any normal day she would have banged the door down demanding to know what Herb wanted. However. This wasn't exactly a normal day and Sissy just couldn't find the fire in her to get mad at Herb. He reached out and knocked on the door. Herb's frantic voice came from the other side.

"One moment! I'm not decent!"

"Not…decent?" Sissy thought to herself. Exactly what the Hell was Herb wanting to tell her? Deep down, something told her that she should have brought her shotgun with her.

"Okay," Herb called, "Come in."

Sissy stalled for a moment. Now she wasn't exactly sure whether or not she wanted to go in. Still, she came all this way. At the very least, Herb owed her an explanation. She placed her hand on the doorknob, twisted it, and slowly opened the door.

Everything seemed to come to her at once. The scents, the sights, and most importantly, the music. That music…

"My mind's tellin' me no, but my body…my body's tellin' me yes!" 

Sissy, who was stricken with shock, scanned the dimly lit room. Instead of having the electric lights on, Herb had some candles, which were saved especially for power outages, lit all around the room. The smell of incense (the kind you can buy real cheap at a World Market) filled the room with a strong aroma. Herb's computer blared out R. Kelly at the far corner of the room, and Herb…Herb was standing smack dab in the middle of the room wearing a night robe trying his hardest to look as pimp as theoretically possible.

"_Baby, I don't want to hurt nobody, but there is something I must confess…to you."_

"Hello Sissy." Herb told her confidently.

"_I don't see nothing wrong, with a little bump n' grind…with a little bump in grind…"_

"Please, step inside." Herb continued slyly.

Something in the back of Sissy's mind yelled "Run!" while others yelled "You should have brought the shotgun!" Regardless, she stepped into the room slowly, bewildered and hypnotized by Herb's faux pimpness.

"So… so baby, bring your body to me… hey, hey, hey… bring your body here" 

"Would you mind…closing the door?" Herb was as confident as ever.

Without taking her eyes off of Herb, Sissy reached behind her and slowly closed the door. In this light, Herb took notice to Sissy's hypnotized disposition.

"Yes!" Herb thought to himself, "She's dazzled by my charms!"

The truth of the matter was, however, that Sissy was in a state of mild shock. The kind of shock you get when you see a car accident unfold in front of you and didn't see it coming. For that brief moment, you don't even scream. You see it, but you can't do anything but stare on. It's like your mind is unable to properly process what has happened before you. In Sissy's case, however, her state of shock was more prolonged. Sissy scanned Herb's room so to be sure what she was seeing wasn't some delusion caused by her emotional grief. If the zombies outside hadn't proved to her yet that this was the twilight zone, this did.

"I take it Nicholas gave you my message?" Herb asked.

Sissy nodded her head, still observing the room.

"Good, good. Look Sissy, there's something I've been meaning to tell you…"

"_Girl you need someone, someone like me, yeah…to satisfy, your every need."_

"…but first," Herb continued, "Would you like something to drink?"

Herb gestured to a plastic bucket, just like the kind you would find in a hotel room, filled with ice and some canned sodas he got from the drink machine earlier. Sissy stared at it, eyes still wide, and then stared back at Herb, shimmying her head back and forth.

"That's cool, that's cool." Herb replied, still sounding pimp, "I know how you feel. Let's skip the drinks and get down to the talking."

Herb put her hand on Sissy's shoulders and sat her down on the edge of the bed. Herb slowly sat himself down next to her.

"Now Sissy…I know that you have feelings. Feelings for…Ulrich…"

"You say he's not treating you right…Lady spend the night…" 

"But Sissy," Herb's voice was transforming into something more desperate, "He's not the only one! You see Sissy…I…I want to be with you too!"

"_I'll love you, like you need to be loved. Girl won't you try, some of me?"_

"I've never been able to say it until now, but I loved you since the moment I first set eyes on you."

Sissy's mouth began to tighten up.

"_No need to look no more, because I've opened up my doors."_

"I may not be as athletic or popular as Ulrich, but I give you my word…I'll treat you right."

She bit down on her bottom lip.

"_You'll never, baby, you'll never, want another love… You'll never find another me!"_

"So what do you say Sissy? Won't you be my girl?" Herb asked passionately.

She felt like she was about to lose it.

"_You see you need someone, someone like me, yeah…To make love to you baby, constantly!"_

Sissy gave off a strange noise though her tightly closed mouth. To Herb it sounded something like a grunt or a snort.

"What?" Herb asked desperately, "What was that Sissy?"

Sissy made another noise. This one sounding like a strange sneeze.

"Is something wrong Sissy?"

That was it. The music, the candles, the incense, the sodas, Herb's attire and now, to top it off, his confessional. Sissy couldn't hold it back any longer.

She laughed. She laughed loud and hard.

Herb watched Sissy's uncontrollable laughter, his mind drowning in confusion.

"Oh Herb!" Sissy said between laughs, "Did Nicholas…did Nicholas put you up to this?"

"Um…yes. I mean, it was my idea, but he said I should go ahead and do it." Herb responded trying to explain himself. It was now him who was confused and uncertain.

"Oh Herb! This was great!" Sissy told him, still laughing, "You guys always know how to cheer me up, but this…this took the cake!"

"I…I don't understand." Herb pleaded.

Sissy reached out and gave Herb a huge, tight hug that almost made him jump out of his skin in shock.

"This was great! I haven't laughed this hard in Lord knows how long! Oh thank you Herb! This was really funny."

Sissy let go of Herb, who stared back at her like a confused animal. His glasses set crookedly on his nose and his hair seemed a little messy, but he didn't even seem to recognize, let alone try to fix it.

Sissy got to her feet as she wiped some tears off of the corner of her eyes.

"Oh, that was great! I'm not going to be able to forget that one! That's too good!"

Sissy walked over to the bucket of drinks and removed one from the bucket.

"You wouldn't mind if I took one of these, would you ya big stud?" Sissy asked teasingly.

Herb just shimmied his head back in forth in a manner not all too different from the way Sissy did to him earlier.

"Awesome." Sissy said, smiling. She cracked the can open and winked at Herb, "I'll talk to you later, Casanova."

Sissy headed for the door and left Herb's room, still laughing over what she just saw. Herb just sat there on his bed in staring at the door in disbelief.

"Did I just score?" he asked himself as R. Kelly's voice faded.

_**3**_

_**

* * *

**_

Ulrich opened the door to Jeremy's room. At the end of the room sat Jeremy in front of his system with both Odd and Yumi standing on both sides of him. Everyone turned to see him.

"Hey Ulrich," Jeremy said, turning back to his system, "You're just in time. We're getting ready to go over escape plans."

"Last to show, huh?" Yumi asked acidly.

Before anyone could say anything else, Jeremy turned to Yumi and mouthed the word "Don't". He then turned to see Ulrich and gave him a similar look. Ulrich clearly looked hurt, but he didn't even look at Yumi. He closed the door behind him and walked over to Jeremy.

"What's the plan?" he asked.

"We grab a car and ride it out of here and straight to the factory, that's the easy part. It's Sissy and everyone else that's the problem."

"What about them?" Ulrich asked.

"We need to get them out of here." Jeremy replied.

"I don't see why." Yumi added, still sounding upset, "They'll be safe here until we set everything right."

"It's not about that." Jeremy answered, "We need for them to have a ride of their own as a safety measure for them. That way they'll still be able to get a ride out of here in case we…you know…don't make it."

"Now Jeremy, that's quitter talk." Odd said half-jokingly.

"Quitter talk or not, it's what's best."

"I know. It's just…" Yumi stumbled over her words, "I just don't see why...why…"

"Why we should care about them?" Ulrich said completing Yumi's sentence. Everyone turned to Ulrich, who was glaring back at Yumi, "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?"

"That's enough!" Jeremy interrupted, "I said we were going to finish this tonight and I meant it! Now lets get back to work."

Both Ulrich and Yumi glared at each other again and then turned back to Jeremy.

"Where are we going to get the extra car, Einstein?" Odd asked.

"Sissy and everyone else can take Nurse Dorothy's car. The keys should still be in her office here in the dorms. We can take other armored car outside. It's still running and in good enough condition."

"Why not let Sissy and them take the armored car? They'll be making the longer trip and will need the extra protection, so how about we take Dorothy's car instead?"

Yumi made an annoyed grunting noise, but no one paid her any attention. Jeremy continued.

"The armored car has been running ever since it got here Ulrich. Given how much fuel it may have and given the condition of the car it may only be able to get us as far as the factory before it goes kaput."

"Good point." Ulrich replied.

"Well, it sounds like a plan to me." Odd said, "Want me to go and get the others?"

"Sure." Jeremy said, "The sooner, the better."

"Very well then," Yumi said smugly, "I'll go and find Nicholas. Odd, you find Herb…and Ulrich…since you seem to be so taken with her, why don't you go ahead get Sissy?"

"I will." Ulrich replied sternly as he went for the door.

Yumi watched Ulrich storm over to the door and didn't turn back to Jeremy until she heard him strongly close it behind him.

"Real smooth." Jeremy told Yumi.

"Save it." Yumi replied, heading to the door. When she left, Odd turned back to Jeremy.

"Something tells me that this isn't going to just blow over Odd. Yumi seems pissed."

"Hell hath no fury…" Odd replied as he left for the door.

_**4**_

_**

* * *

**_

In a matter of minutes, everyone was gathered in the lobby of the dorms. Tamiya and Milly were sitting on the floor rubbing their eyes while Sissy leaned up against the wall polishing off a can of soda. Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich waited together in a huddle at near the hallway for Jeremy to arrive. In the corner, Nicholas and Herb were chatting it up.

"So, how'd it go?" Nicholas asked Herb quietly so that Sissy wouldn't overhear.

"What? Oh, all right I guess."

"Well? What happened? Did she get mad?"

"No, not really. I think she kind of enjoyed it."

"Enjoyed it!" Nicholas replied disbelievingly, "I mean, um, of course she did. Why wouldn't she?"

"Sure. It's just, I'm not sure if she likes me or not."

"What do you mean? She, er, enjoyed it, right? She must like you then. It's chicks man, not rocket science."

"Might as well be rocket science." Herb replied sighing.

Just then, Jeremy stepped into the room. Everyone rose to attention.

"So?" Sissy asked, "What's this about?"

"Well, I believe we may have come up with a plan in regards to getting us out of here."

"Cool." Sissy said happily.

Jeremy was a bit caught off guard by this. Wasn't Sissy extremely upset earlier? What could have happened to make her so happy? No matter. This was business.

"Er, right. The plan is as follows. We're going to split up into two groups. Sissy, Herb, Nicholas, Tamiya and Milly will all take Nurse Dorothy's car, we have her keys right here, and take it to the city. Me, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd will take the other armored car outside."

"That beat up thing?" Sissy asked, "Whatever. Suit yourself. So, what, you guys will be following us or what?"

"No," Jeremy replied, "We're going elsewhere."

Just as soon as he said it, Jeremy realized he shouldn't have. Sissy, her entourage, and the girls stood at attention.

"Going elsewhere? Just what in the Hell is that supposed to mean?" Sissy said, moving towards Jeremy.

"Well, er, what I mean is, um…"

"What he means is, eh, that we should look for, um, other survivors while you guys look for shelter." Odd interrupted, trying to cover for Jeremy's slip.

"Oh, you guys are going to go and look for survivors in that beat up jalopy, huh?"

"Uh…yes?"

Sissy took a step forward to Odd and gave him a nasty glare.

"You lie." She breathed slowly.

"It's true!" Ulrich pleaded.

"Oh really? Well it sounds like a load of crap to me! There's no reason for us to split up. Furthermore, why is it always you four who are in the same group, huh? Where are you running off to?"

"Where we're running off to isn't any of your damned business!" Yumi answered as she stepped in front of Sissy.

"You had best step out of my face!" Sissy shouted. She was so close to Yumi that she could have very well been breathing down her throat.

"You can't tell me what to do! You're not my mother!"

"Girls!" Ulrich said stepping in between the two of them, "Don't start acting like this."

"Sorry Ulrich." Sissy said, pushing him out of the way, "I got something I've got to say to Yumi here."

"You can't put your hands on him!" Yumi demanded.

"I'll put my hands all over him if I want to!" Sissy replied, making intimate hand gestures, "He's not your man. If anything, he's more mine than yours."

"And just what makes you think that Ulrich would want to have anything to do with a stuck-up skank like you anyway?"

"Please, don't even try to flatter yourself! You couldn't get a man half-as-good as Ulrich, not with that big ass forehead of yours."

Yumi snapped. Her eyes widened madly as she placed her hand on Sissy's shoulder and cocked back a punch.

"You…CUNT!"

Yumi's fish shot foreward, slamming hard against Sissy's mouth. Sissy flew backwards, falling on her back. Tamiya and Milly let out two loud gasps as she smacked down on the pavement. Sissy leaned up and put her hand to her mouth. From it, she wiped off a spot of blood. She stared madly at it and then stared back at Yumi.

"You want to bring it on, bitch?"

"Pencak Silat," Yumi said, entering a fighter's stance, "Black belt."

"That so?" Sissy hissed as she got to her feet, "Well then, lets see how you like my-foot-in-your-ass style!"

Sissy lunged a kick forward, catching Yumi in the stomach, sending her flying forward. As she hit the floor, Sissy lunged for her, mounting herself on top as she delivered a flurry of punches to Yumi's blocked face.

"Oh shit!" Odd yelled, "Tamiya, get the camera!"

"I'm one step ahead of you." Tamiya replied as she began filming.

While Sissy resumed with her torrent of punches, Yumi swiftly raised her leg and kicked Sissy in the back of the head. Sissy yelled in pain as she clutched the back of her head. Yumi unblocked her face and looked up at Sissy.

"Let's see how you like my forehead now!" she shouted as she headbutted Sissy, sending her back to the floor.

Yumi got to her feet as Sissy clutched both sides of her skull. Yumi grabbed her by the back and lifted her up above her head. Yumi then proceeded to toss Sissy into a small, wooden folding table next to her which was used to set drinks on top of. Soda spilled everywhere as the guys who watched on scattered throughout the room to avoid the puddle. Yumi mounted Sissy and began to deliver her own set of punches. One…two…and then in a move that caught Yumi off guard, Sissy caught the third one and retorted with a swift punch in the throat. Yumi coughed loudly as Sissy kicked her off of her and onto another puddle of fluid. As she did, Yumi caught Sissy's shirt and tore it. What was left was a mostly torn shirt that showed Sissy in her brassiere.

"Oh, that's how it's going to be, huh bitch?" Sissy shouted.

As Yumi laid face first in the puddle of soda, Sissy reached for Yumi's shirt and tore it off of her, leaving her in her brassiere as well. Yumi gasped in terror as she threw the torn shirt across the room.

"Whore!" Yumi scream as she tackled Sissy to the ground and proceeded to wrestle her in the spilled soda pop.

"Oh damn!" Odd said to himself, pulling on the front collar of his shirt as he watched the two girls wrestle half-nakedly, wet in the pool of soda, "This is getting hot!"

As they wrestled, Sissy caught Yumi in a leg lock and held her in place, cutting off her air supply. Yumi choked for a moment as she hammered away ay Sissy's legs, but to no avail. Yumi then pulled up Sissy's pants leg and bit her on the ankle. Sissy howled in pain as she loosened her grip on Yumi's neck. Yumi slowly returned to her feet and caught her breath while Sissy recovered and returned to hers.

"Biting, huh?" Sissy asked, "Pretty cheap, but not something I wouldn't expect from a cheap ho like you."

"Well then, let's see if you can see this one coming!"

Yumi ran forward and dived at Sissy, delivering a massive dropkick to her midsection. Sissy flew backwards, almost into Nicholas and Herb, who scattered quickly out of the girl's way. Yumi hit the floor from her dropkick, sending a wave of pain though her body. She was growing tired of this, but the adrenaline in her system was keeping her in the game.

"Nicholas!" Herb called out, "We really need to do something!"

"Yeah." Nicholas replied apathetically as he gazed at Sissy's soda-soaked chest.

"Dammit Nicholas!"

"Shut up! Can't you see I'm enjoying myself?"

Yumi got to her feet and dragged herself over to Sissy. Standing above her, she began to deliver a series of swift kicks to her sides. When Sissy's nerve came back to her, she grabbed Yumi's foot and pulled it towards her, causing Yumi to fall to the floor. Yumi's body hit the floor with an ugly thud. Sissy, who was now too weak to return to her feet, slumped over Yumi's body and began to hammer away at her face. Using her last bit of strength, Yumi caught Sissy's punch and returned with a massive uppercut that sent Sissy slumping over to the floor. The girls lied on the wet floor, panting heavily thought their bleeding noses.

"Hot damn!" Nicholas exclaimed, "That was great!"

Nicholas looked up to see Jeremy, Ulrich and Herb giving him fractured looks.

"I mean, er, break it up you two! That'll be enough of that!"

"Shut up Nicholas and help me get these girls to a room for them to recover." Jeremy said, picking up Yumi's body.

"Milly, go to the nurse's office and grab a first aid kit."

Milly nodded and darted off to grab the kit. Ulrich made his way over to Sissy's body and grabbed her by the ankles.

"Give me a hand here Nicholas." Ulrich said.

"Same here Herb." Jeremy added.

Both boys nodded and complied, helping them with the two girls. Odd made his way over to Tamiya, who had already finished filming.

"Hey Tamiya," Odd said extending his hand to the girl, "20 Euros says I can have a copy of that tape."

Tamiya looked at Odd's hand and look back at him smiling. She grabbed his hand and shook it.

"Deal!" she said.

"Ooh! Me too!" Nicholas called out in distance.

"Shut up Nicholas!" Ulrich replied.

_**5**_

_**

* * *

**_

"Jesus that hurts!" Sissy shouted.

"I need to do it!" Jeremy pleaded as he dabbed Sissy's wounds with rubbing alcohol, "It's to prevent infection."

"Oh! When I get my hands on Yumi…" Sissy said, slowly trying to rise out of her bed.

"You're not in any position to hurt anyone." Ulrich said, putting his hand Sissy's shoulder and gently pressing her back down on the bed, "Not tonight anyway."

Sissy sighed and looked around her room. She was still pretty angry, but more so, she was ashamed of what she had done. She must have looked like an animal doing what she had just done. Now here she was lying in bed in her brassiere, soaked, sticky and smelling like orange soda. Suddenly, the sting of the rubbing alcohol wasn't so bad.

"Sissy, you think you'll be able to get up in a bit?" Jeremy asked.

"I suppose…why?"

"Because it's best you get cleaned up. You know, wash off all that soda and all."

There was a sharp-tongued comeback somewhere at the end of that comment, but Sissy was all too exhausted to find it.

"Yeah, I know."

"Good." Jeremy replied, getting to his feet, "Well, I'm going to see how Yumi is doing."

"She's in your room, right?" Ulrich asked, "I'll go with you."

Both of them made their way to Sissy's door, but Sissy caught them at the last moment.

"Ulrich…wait."

Both of them stopped in their tracks and turned back to Sissy.

"What is it?" Ulrich asked.

"Why are you going…with Yumi and everyone else I mean…when we leave, you know?"

"Crap," Ulrich thought to himself, "You weren't going to forget, were you?"

"Why are you always going? You and her…together…why? Why can't it be us?"

Ulrich sighed and kneeled before Sissy's bed, taking her hand into his.

"I'm sorry Sissy, I can't tell you that."

"But why!" she pleaded, almost in tears, "It's me isn't it? It's because you hate me!"

"No! It's not like that at all! It's not about you!"

"Then it's about her, isn't it! Why can't it be me? What does she have that I don't!"

"It's not about Yumi either. It's about something else. Something bigger."

"Like what?"

"Something big." Ulrich answered, "Bigger than me, you, Yumi, everything. It's something that I have to do."

"I don't understand." She said to him. Her eyes were beginning to water.

"I know, and I'm sorry, but trust me. It's something that that I have to do, for everyone."

Sissy stared back at him, her jaw trembling.

"Will I see you again?"

Ulrich was quiet. He didn't know how to answer that question, but he went ahead and did anyway.

"Yes…you will. I promise."

Sissy gave Ulrich a gentle look.

"I believe you," she said smiling, "But just in case…"

Sissy wrapped her arm around Ulrich's shoulder and lifted herself up to his lips. She kissed him tightly as Ulrich hummed in surprise. He could taste the blood and root beer on her lips, but he didn't mind. It was for Sissy. She loosened her grip on Ulrich and lowered herself down on the bed.

"Thank you." She said softly, "I'm tired. Could you turn the lights out when you leave."

"Sure.' Ulrich told her, looking at her surprised.

She said nothing. She hummed delightedly as she closed her eyes and drifted into sleep. Ulrich got to his feet and left the room, turning the lights out. Both him and Jeremy stood outside her door and stared at each other with an expression of surprise on both their faces.

"Jeremy, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"Don't you ever tell anyone what just happened in there."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Thanks, you're a pal."


End file.
